The multiple issues of privacy on the internet and the Google Toilet

I was sitting in on a talk about Personal Health Records (PHR) at the CES 2010 show two weekends ago. I know that might sound like a odd topic at the Consumer Electronics Show, but electronic in medical devices and medicine in general is a big market that have many of the electronics and software companies salivating.

One of the big perceived roadblocks to getting people to put their health records online is the concern that without good security, people's health info will be stolen by identity thieves. I do not want to minimize this concern, it is real. However, there is a second privacy issue around the internet and with fine grained information about our lives [whether we post it first hand on the internet or not] that I think is far less understood [which make it even worse, considering how little it appears most people understand about identity theft]. The issue is around corporate access to this information. I put government access somewhat in this same area, but I think that government access deserves it own analysis. I think that we have a number of good watchdogs of government, but do we have enough groups watching corporate ethics?

I do not think that we understand how much of our personal data and rights we are giving up to corporations and how they can use this 'against us'. Back to the electronic health records, I think the real concern we should have is about electronic access to our health information by insurance companies, hospitals, drug companies and others that might might be motivated to use this information for their betterment at the cost of the owner of the information.

I think what is needed is a requirement that every company or other entity that we grant access to our private information be required to show us at any time what other entities have been given this information via the specific company we are give our data to. And allow us to revoke this access to the information at any time. It would appear that getting  this control would require new additions to privacy laws. Additionally, it is a complex software and record keeping challenge. However both issues are solvable today, if we decide they are important.

A growing part of the internet, called 'the internet of things', will make it even more important that we have a better top down and easy to manage control of information about us and who gets it. My brother recently shared that the car pool payment sensor in his car now posts the speed at which the vehicle is traveling when it passes the billing sensors on the highways. If his insurance company were to make an agreement with the for profit company that builds these car pool lanes to get speed information about people that it insures, would he know this arrangement was in place when he agreed to put this sensor in his car? Could he revoke it at anytime and be apprised of the consequences? Insurance companies know your home address, the kind of car you drive, your age, driving record from the motor vehicle department. Knowing information about how fast your car is driven does seem like a bit data that the insurance company would want to having.

This funny but a little graphic video create by SuperNews at Current.com brings it 'home'.