A ProPublica investigation revealed that medical images and health data are often stored in insecure servers that are easily accessible to anyone with a bit of computer knowledge.
We identified 187 servers — computers that are used to store and retrieve medical data — in the U.S. that were unprotected by passwords or basic security precautions. The computer systems, from Florida to California, are used in doctors’ offices, medical-imaging centers and mobile X-ray services.
All told, medical data from more than 16 million scans worldwide was available online, including names, birthdates and, in some cases, Social Security numbers.
Check It Out: Your X-Ray Images and Medical Data Are Available on the Internet
Andrew:
Doctors are not the best business people. The takeover of managed care by the suits is ample illustration. Similarly, doctors are not the best IT security people. That your X-rays and medical data are in the wild should suffice for any who doubt. Doctors, shockingly, in the main are good at being doctors; not general Renaissance persons.
Incidences such as these further underscore the need for data platform professionals to step in and provide solutions (which already exist), but more to the point, for a company like Apple, with their own whole widget platform, to extend that platform, with its commitment to the user experience and to privacy, to placing those assets into the hands of the consumer/patient in a way that provides the individual with the primary control over their health data. All of their health data, because at the end of the day, those data are yours.
More importantly, your life depend upon those data, and to entrust another with that primary responsibility is the bet of your life. Literally.
Looking forward to Apple, and others, competing to provide their users with a comprehensive personal health data management solution.