Google Knows All About Your Childhood Measles And Your Latest Lab Results ...

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Be afraid. Be VERY afraid .....

Here are two chilling articles on how Google intends to turn you, and your lifetime medical history along with future illnesses, into an endless income stream without your knowledge or consent.

Google has access to detailed health records on tens of millions of Americans
https://arstechnica.com/science/201...r-medical-records-it-might-already-have-them/


Google: You can trust us with the medical data you didn’t know we already had [Updated]
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...e-medical-data-you-didnt-know-we-already-had/

 

[andyguitar]

Yep read about this in the paper. Totally frcking out of order.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Yep read about this in the paper. Totally frcking out of order.

Am assuming you may have read the original article in the Wall Street Journal. These expand on that chillingly.

 

[jesse's mom]

Really scary!

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

@jesse's mom
I totally hear that and raise it 2 "scary's". And add a couple of "....effing appalling's..." .... It's astonishing that this has slipped thru, unnoticed, unchallenged, and largely uncommented on.

 

[Pearshaped]

..and no world-wide shitstorm follows.
How powerful must they already be.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

..and no world-wide shitstorm follows.
How powerful must they already be.

I agree. It's pretty unsettling.

I'd settle for a U.S. shitstorm, since this is where they're HQ'd. And unfortunatly where they've already bought all the influence they could possibly need.

It's pretty disheartening, especially under an administration that happily turns a blind eye.

 

[jesse's mom]

And tweets away at nothing!

 

[Mary]

Wow! I hate google. I won't use gmail (for all the good that does me!)

From one of the articles:

Ascension aims, in part, to improve patient care with the project. Internal documents seen by WSJ indicate that Ascension also hopes that the Google-mining will help identify additional ways to generate revenue from patients, such as ordering more medical tests.

health care is not expensive enough?? I'm sure they talk about maximizing profits etc. And Ascension is a Catholic non-profit "health care system", the 2nd largest in the U.S.? This just sounds bizarre.

The only good news is this update from one of the articles:

The Google/Ascension project is now being investigated by the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services, the Wall Street Journal reported in an update last night. The office said it "will seek to learn more information about this mass collection of individuals' medical records to ensure that HIPAA protections were fully implemented."

 

[Wolfcub]

An example of entities stepping outside of their job description after having got way too big for their boots.
We certainly need to be educated about what goes on.
Are they above the law? That's a question that needs to be asked. The law may find an achiiles' heel there somewhere among the dung.

I think of the Roman Empire. It thought it ruled the world but was eaten from the inside by its very nature.....

 

[Wolfcub]

It's astonishing that this has slipped thru, unnoticed, unchallenged, and largely uncommented on.

Not astonishing. Typical and carefully engineered, and quite a few palms greased in "high places". I am not the slightest bit surprised.

Abominable...oh yes.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

I think of the Roman Empire. It thought it ruled the world but was eaten from the inside by its very nature.....

Well that, and the hordes of marauding Germanic tribes descending on them in 476 AD

The law may find an achiiles' heel there somewhere among the dung.

The law is in on it. As you noted. It's surprizingly (and depressingly) cost-effective, inexpensive even, to buy out 'The Law'. At the top, where laws are made.

 

[Judee]

One article says that:

Questions have been raised about whether Google’s actions broke federal law, but privacy experts say it doesn’t.

The experts reference the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that says data can be shared with business partners without consent of the patient “only to help the covered entity carry out its health-care functions,” the Journal reported.

I remember people way back then warning that HIPAA was not to help the patient. The article repeats what they were saying at the time:

Seems the very small nice type inside the HIPAA law does, in fact, allow portability of private health information without the patient’s knowledge or approval.

That's how it always starts...they tell us something is for our own good and we find out that it was really for their purposes but there are usually people who try to sound the alarm but are largely ignored.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

That's how it always starts...they tell us something is for our own good and we find out that it was really for their purposes

Yeah. Like The Patriot Act, Homeland Security, others I can't bring to mind. The Health Information Portability Act? Portable right out of your control to wherever they want to put it. But your spouse will need a Durable Power of Atty, several lawyers, a lot of money and the patience of Job to direct your care in the event of an accident. And by the time your round up all that, the hospital will have moved your spouse around so many times that even they don't know where to find him/her. Jolly fun, what ?

My rule of thumb is to totally invert the given name of something like this and see if it makes more sense that way, like the "Screw you and your family, we totally own your health information. Anyone else will need three lawyers and a whoooole lotta time....". Or, "We intend to read and save all your emails, listen to your phone calls and tape them for future reference, and since we're doing it in the name of patriotism, good luck standing against that, 'ya commie ...." . I find it saves me a lot of aggravation when the true purpose and intent is finally revealed.

 

[Foxglove]

The thing is, those big data aggregators have it completely wrong.

I get totally inaccurate advertising all the time.

Not only can they not decide my age, gender, income level, political affiliation, or sexual orientation, they also are totally convinced I have and/or am trying to have kids. And have a cat or dog. Or less common pet.

I also look up a lot of health information, for various sorts of purposes, and they haven't figured out it isn't all for me. (No, they don't think I'm a doctor. Womenz aren't doctors. What witchraft is that? Maybe I'm a caregiver for aging parents.) So I get advertised for all sorts of medications.

Most of it is funny (you think I can afford the fanciest car they make? Or even that I drive?).

Edited to remove an irrelevant part and to add:

I see from reading the article that this is from actual medical records, but that has the potential for error also.

My insurance company recently reviewed my chart and picked out some irrelevant data to come to some wildly inaccurate conclusions.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

I see from reading the article that this is from actual medical records, but that has the potential for error also.

It's not just the potential for errors, which are rampant in the medical industry, but the fact that the information, no matter what they promise, is not separated from your identity. Or your social security #. Or any other ID marker you can think of.

So your insurance company could review them and decide, based on that information, to either increase your premiums monstrously, or drop you entirely. Or limit the kind of testing you're allowed, and the extent.

There;s no privacy guarantee in this invasion.