Google's 'Project Nightingale' Gathers Personal Health Data on Millions of Americans

[wysimdnwyg]

39. Trump's lawyers aside, it is legal

It's distasteful (at best) on the surface, but there are very valid reasons for people outside your immediate scope of healthcare to have access to records. That said, depending on how the data is being used, it could be acceptable to de-identify it so that an individual record could not be linked back to a specific patient. This typically involves removal or encryption of all demographic data as well as selected other data elements, without impacting the benefits or diagnosis/procedure.

I work in Healthcare IT, and we need access to the data all the time. While most of you see "PRIVACY VIOLATION!!", I see "competition". They will be using the data to advance healthcare technology, which is, in many ways, the same thing I do on a daily basis. With proper restrictions and data safety protocols (high levels of data access security, strong encryption, etc.), most of the people working on these projects will probably never see a name or SSN, as those won't be needed for their daily work. At that point, it's perfectly compliant with HIPAA.