Is Google Setting Themselves Up for Lawsuits?
It’s true, Google wants your medical records. Google isn’t covered by HIPAA, which means it’s a lot easier for the “powers that be” to get a hold of your personal medical records.
While it’s been rumored for years, Google is finally revealing a little bit about its Google Health plans, as it’s opening up the service to a few thousand patients of the Cleveland Clinic. Those patients will be turning over their medical records to Google which, of course, is raising security and privacy concerns. It probably doesn’t help that the news of this is breaking at about the same time as reports that Google accidentally exposed Gmail accounts in Kuwait. Exposing emails is bad enough, but your health records? Obviously, one hopes that Google is doing everything possible to protect the info, but as the AP report points out, Google is not covered by HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act,), meaning that even under the best intentions of Google, handing your records over to the company could make them easier for the government or legal adversaries to get at those records, since they’ve left the bounds of protected communication between a doctor and patient.
(Via Techdirt.)
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