Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times has an article on how medical transcription services are outsourced. Jeff Drummond of HIPAA Blog doesn’t have a problem with that and doesn’t see much risk if the info is mainly medical and not financial. I would bet that for many people, the risk of their sensitive medical data being exposed on the web as part of an extortion or labor dispute would be of concern. HIV status, abortion/pregnancy issues, addiction…. there are a whole slew of conditions that jump to mind as being cause for concern if they were publicly exposed.
Jeff writes, “Obviously, there needs to be tight security for ID theft,” but that misses the point that for many of us, the financial isn’t the main concern about data security. I can get a new credit card if my number is compromised. What I can’t get is my privacy back if my sensitive health information been plastered all over the web.