JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Patient data has conventionally been thought to be well protected by privacy laws. The increasing interest of for-profit companies in acquiring the data bases of large health care systems poses new challenges to the protection of patients’ privacy. It also raises concerns of the ethical nature of sharing patient data to entities which may exploit it for commercial interests and even target vulnerable populations. Recognizing that every breach in confidentiality of large databases exposes millions of patients to the potential of being exploited is important in framing new rules for governing the sharing of patent data. Similarly, the ethical aspects of data voluntarily and altruistically provided by patients for research may be exploited for commercial interests due to patient data sharing between health care entities and third party companies needs to addressed. The rise of technologies such as facial recognition, artificial intelligence and the availability of personal data gleaned by data vendor companies places patients at risk of being exploited both intentionally and inadvertently due to sharing of their data by their health care provider institution and third party entities.