CAREER: Health Information Privacy Protection: System and Social Aspects

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The experience of providing or receiving medical care has a verypersonal dimension. Quoted from the Hippocratic oath:"Whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my dealings withmen, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will neverdivulge, holding such things to be holy secrets". The 1996Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)required the Administration to issue regulations protecting theprivacy of health information. Such a regulation gives consumersthe right to see, copy, and correct their own health informationand the right of being notified as to how their healthinformation is going to be used and shared. It also imposes newrestrictions on those who hold health information.However, legal protection alone is not enough as it can only beapplied after the problem has occurred, when the damage hasalready been done. Moreover, law enforcement is usuallyexpensive, slow, and complex. The goal of this project is todesign a comprehensive technical infrastructure that guaranteesthe enforcement of health information privacy protection. Theproblem of data protection and privacy is addressed on atechnical level, thus preventing any violation of a privacypolicy in advance rather than correcting it after it hasoccurred. The intend of the project is to demonstrate thathealth information privacy solutions can be designed to achievemeaningful benefits without penalizing society with unduefinancial burdens or worse, with the compromise of public safety.