Privacy and health information: the need for a fine-grained account.
Privacy and health information: the need for a fine-grained account.
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隐私和健康信息:需要细粒度的账户。
DOI:
10.1093/intqhc/12.1.5
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发表时间:
2000
期刊:
影响因子:
--
通讯作者:
J. van den Hoven
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
J. van den Hoven
The privacy issue lies at the heart of an ongoing debate in the details of privacy questions. In order to be more precise we need to recast the ‘privacy versus health’ issue nearly all Western democracies – the question is how to balance individual rights and collective goods. As far as the in terms of a more fine-grained account. The subject matter is too complex to be handled in terms of general privacy issue in health care is concerned, liberalists tend to emphasize the importance of an individual moral right to notions such as ‘health data’, ‘privacy’, ‘confidentiality’, ‘doctor–patient relationship’. We need, for example, to medical privacy and informational self-determination, whereas communitarians typically argue that the community benefits specify which stakeholders and parties are involved [3], which specific normative rules of access are proposed [4], from access to personal health data in terms of cost reduction, better medical research, improved public health and quality in which contexts medical information is created and in which contexts it is used [5,6], which different domains of health care. The liberalist view has become dominant in the Western world. Especially in Europe this has lead to within (clinical, medical research, quality measurement, technology assessment, hospital administration) and outside strong privacy laws which protect the individual. A recent report to the European Commission of the European Group (insurance, commerce, marketing, politics, criminal justice, accountancy) the medical sphere can be distinguished [7], on Ethics calls for further legal protective measures for health care data within the frame provided by the EU privacy which information exchanges across the boundaries of spheres and domains are allowed and which are not, which directive of 1995 [1]. Don Detmer draws attention to the communitarian side are the needs (to know, print, copy to, etc.) and (real and perceived) vulnerabilities of the relevant stakeholders, how of the controversy of the health data privacy debate. Like Amitai Etzioni he is concerned about some of the negative their trust in the health care system is affected [8]. But first and foremost we must distinguish between the different effects of the principle of informed consent as the centrepiece of European and most US privacy initiatives moral reasons that may justify data-protection regimes for health data [9]. This will complete a fine-grained account [2]. One of the negative effects is that the ability to review data for quality measurement in health care is seriously of informational privacy in health care and will enable us to weigh competing claims more carefully. compromised by ‘opt out’ provisions at the discretion of individuals. Detmer’s argument amounts to a form of the The first type of moral reason for data protection is concerned with the prevention of harm, more specifically public goods argument: medical science and quality health care are public goods, which require a steady (financial harm done to persons by making use of personal information about them. The fact that personal information is used to and informational) input and effort by all. If too many people ‘ride free’ by choosing anonymity and not making inflict harm or cause serious disadvantages to individuals does not necessarily make such uses violations of a moral their health data available, then these public goods cannot be sustained and produced on an interesting level. This right to privacy. In an information society there is a new vulnerability to information-based harm. The prevention of argument for limits to privacy and against opt-out controls aims at restoring a balance between individual privacy information-based harm provides the strongest possible justification for limiting access to medical records. rights and the needs to know on the part of the community. It is in our common interest, Detmer suggests, to be less The second type of moral reason to justify data protection is concerned with equality and fairness. More and more sensitive to the use of our medical data. I agree with Detmer that the privacy issue will not people are aware of the benefits a market for personal data can provide. Many privacy concerns seem to have simply go away and may become an obstacle in the relations between the USA and EU, as well as an dissolved in quid pro quo practices and private contracts about the use and secondary use of personal data. But impediment to quality measurement in health care. Detmer correctly points out that ‘much of the debate about the although a market mechanism for trading personal data seems to be kicking in, not all individual consumers and use of person-specific health information swirls around the practical meaning of privacy (my emphasis). I think that some patients are trading their data in a transparent and fair market environment. Moreover they do not always know of the hard privacy problems could indeed be resolved if this issue of the practical meaning of privacy would be what the implications are of what they are consenting to when they sign a contract. Data protection laws in these addressed head-on and if we could be more precise about