If your electronic health records are released accidentally, absent an intentional or grossly negligent action from a healthcare provider, chances are you’re out of luck in obtaining any relief for any embarrassment or discomfort you experience from having your health information publicized.
Privacy has taken a serious hit as technology improves and expands. Background checks that include data on your credit history and other personal data are perfectly legitimate in today’s marketplace, and are frequently relied upon by employers and others, even when the data is arguably largely irrelevant to the position a person is applying for. Your home’s market value, the price you paid, all available.
It seems remarkable that gun ownership might be the vehicle for drawing a line in the sand about the limits of what’s OK to share with the whole world and what should be protected as “private”.
It’s not the information that’s harmful, it’s what people believe will be done with it. And in that, the NRA is correct, those who are anti-gun might consider the “map”.
The most important process that can emerge from the publicity of the gun map is a realistic discussion of not what data should be used for, but HOW data is actually used. A gun owner who undergoes situational depression and seeks mental health services, will his gun permit be revoked? Perhaps it should be, especially amidst discussions of stricter mental health background checks for issuance of permits. If your neighbor hears you fighting with your spouse and knows you own a gun, is that neighbor likelier to call the police? Perhaps. Will those anti-gun individuals be less likely to purchase a home in your neighborhood? Maybe so. Should gun owners with children be subject to inspection to make sure the gun is kept in his home properly? It makes sense that it should be. Should homeowner insurers know whether their insureds have guns in the home? Probably so.
There are consequences, intended and unintended from the publication of any information. While I don’t believe the gun owners’ arguments are persuasive regarding privacy, I do believe they are relevant in highlighting the increased protections required for consumers when their health information is publicized.
The reason I believe the gun map case is not a strong case based on privacy is that it’s based on individuals who sought and were granted permits and licenses to own a gun.
Licenses, permits are derived from government and present evidence that an individual or company has the RIGHT to do something, whether it’s practice medicine, teach, drive certain types of vehicles, or own a firearm. Licenses are a credential that gun owners achieved, much like a diploma or other certifications that prove a certain level of competency in a particular area. The license communicates to others that the individual is legit.
Gun owners seem worried there will be some stigma attached to the information, a moral judgment drawn from the fact of the license. Quotes from gun owners such as those claiming that the publication of gun owners means they are being treated like sex offenders, or that the map is somehow similar to WWII and Nazi Germany’s use of the yellow star to identify Jews, shows an awareness that they know that the data about their gun licenses might lead to misuse in terms of some conclusion being drawn about them that are not true. However, unlike in the case of sex offenders, or in the case of the Jews in Nazi Germany, GUN OWNERS CHOOSE to provide that information to the government in order to gain the RIGHT TO own a gun.
I hope the NRA promotes discussion of privacy issues.
Nobody is supposed to discriminate against you based on your health records. Nobody is supposed to deny you employment because you have AIDS or because you’re being treated for depression or migraines. However, once that knowledge is out there, while you will not be told the reason you were not chosen for a job, you’ll never know whether that information was used against you in some way.
Once your health information is "out there," you cannot control how it is used. I believe that there should be significant fines imposed on any healthcare provider or its agents for ANY breach of health information, and that those fines should be paid to the consumers whose information was leaked, whether or not a higher threshold of proving gross negligence or sale for commercial purposes is proven.
Additionally, those healthcare providers that have leaked such information should have their information published so that consumers can use that irresponsibility as one of the criteria consumers have access to when they choose providers.
The gun ownership case brings to the fore the issue of how data is used once it is in the public sphere and can be a great starting point for a realistic consideration of the protections required for patients as we shift to electronic health records.
