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Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Medical Informatics

Date Submitted: Jul 25, 2023
Date Accepted: Oct 13, 2024

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Information Source Characteristics of Personal Data Leakage During the COVID-19 Pandemic in China: Observational Study

Wang Z, Hu F, Su J, Lin Y

Information Source Characteristics of Personal Data Leakage During the COVID-19 Pandemic in China: Observational Study

JMIR Med Inform 2024;12:e51219

DOI: 10.2196/51219

PMID: 39657212

PMCID: 11651669

Information source characteristics of personal data leakage in public health emergencies: Evidence from COVID-19 Pandemic in China

  • Zhong Wang; 
  • Fangru Hu; 
  • Jie Su; 
  • Yuyao Lin

ABSTRACT

Background:

Information source characteristics of personal data leakage in public health emergencies: Evidence from COVID-19 in China

Objective:

To examines the information source characteristics of personal data leakage during COVID-19 in China.

Methods:

Extracting information source characteristics of 40 personal data leakage cases by open coding, analyzing the data with one-dimensional matrix and two-dimensional matrix.

Results:

In terms of organizational characteristics of leakage, leakage cases mainly occur in government agency or below the prefecture-level, while few occur in medical system or high level government organizations. As for the leaker, most of them are junior staff or regular employees, instead of senior managers or temporary workers. In terms of the channel of divulging, family WeChat groups is the main platform, and forwarding documents accounts for more, while taking photos and screenshots are relatively less.

Conclusions:

We propose the following suggestions: restricting the data collection authority of non-medical institutions and low level government agencies, strengthen training on privacy protection for low level employees, and restrict the flow of data to social media through technical means.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Wang Z, Hu F, Su J, Lin Y

Information Source Characteristics of Personal Data Leakage During the COVID-19 Pandemic in China: Observational Study

JMIR Med Inform 2024;12:e51219

DOI: 10.2196/51219

PMID: 39657212

PMCID: 11651669

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