Privacy and Computer Technology

US Congress created the Hipaa bill in 1996 because of public concern of how their private information was being used. It is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which Congress created to protect confidentiality, privacy and security of patient information. It was also for health care documents to be passed electronically. Hipaa is a privacy rule, which gives patients control over their health information. Patients have to give permission any healthcare provider can disclose any information placed in the individual’s medical records. It helps limit protected health information (PHI) to minimize the chance of inappropriate disclosure. It establishes national-level standards that healthcare providers must comply with and strictly investigates compliance related issues while holding violators to civil or criminal penalties if they violate the privacy of a person’s PHI. Hipaa also has boundaries for using and disclosing health records by covered entities; a healthcare provider, health plan, and healthcare clearinghouse. It also supports the cause of disclosing PHI without a person’s consent for individual healthcare needs, public benefit and national interests. The portability part of Hipaa guarantees patients health insurance to employees after losing a job, making sure health insurance providers can’t discriminate against people because of health status or pre-existing condition, and keeps their files safe while being sent electronically. The Privacy

As human beings and citizens of the world, everyone values their privacy. It is a right that is often looked over and taken for granted by most. Since the beginning of time, there have been concerns about individuals’ rights to privacy and their personal information remaining confidential. Our founding fathers had concerns about this which is why, “…this right has developed into

The privacy portion of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is a substantial portion of the law that has indeed gained the most attention and had the widest impacts – more so even than the insurance portability portion. The rules that make up the privacy piece of the law are intended to protect patients from having information about their medical history and medical care released to anyone that doesn’t have a right to know. The Security Rule supports the Privacy Rule in how it affects technological advances in healthcare – specifically, electronic medical records: Electronic Medical Records or Electronic Health Records (EMR’s or EHR’s, respectively). The Breach Notification Rule supports patients’ privacy not only by mandating reporting to

The right to privacy means controlling your own personal information and the ability to allow or deny access to others. As Americans, we feel it's a right not a privilege to have privacy. IT technology and the events of September 11, 2001 are diminishing that right, whether its workplace privacy or personal privacy. From sending email, applying for a job, or even using the telephone, Americans right to privacy is in danger. Personal and professional information is being stored, link, transferred, shared, and even sold without your permission or knowledge. IT technology has benefited mankind tremendously in so many areas, but its also comes with a price. Advancements in technology make all individuals vulnerable to

Privacy is what allows people to feel secure in their surroundings. With privacy, one is allowed to withhold or distribute the information they want by choice, but the ability to have that choice is being violated in today’s society. Benjamin Franklin once said, “He who sacrifices freedom or liberty will eventually have neither.” And that’s the unfortunate truth that is and has occurred in recent years. Privacy, especially in such a fast paced moving world, is extremely vital yet is extremely violated, as recently discovered the NSA has been spying on U.S. citizens for quite a while now; based on the Fourth Amendment, the risk of leaked and distorted individual information, as well as vulnerability to lack of anonymity.

One type of personal data we should be concerned with keeping secure is Protected Health Information or PHI. PHI is defined in the Privacy Rule section of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) as “"individually identifiable health information" held or transmitted by a covered entity or its business associate, in any form or media, whether electronic, paper, or oral” (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services). While HIPAA was enacted to address the protection of PHI, it falls short of this task because there are no measures to proactively ensure entities are abiding by its guidelines, the penalties are subjective and fail to inflict enough punishment on entities for data breaches and it puts the onus

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), public law was enacted on August 21, 1996 (HIPAA - General Information, 2013, April 2). HIPAA required the Secretary to issue privacy regulations to rule individually identifiable health information (HHS.gov, n.d.). The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) applies to health plans, health care clearing houses, and to any health care provider who carries health information into electronic form in connection with transaction (HHS.gov, n.d.). One of the many most important goals of the privacy rule is for individuals to get the assurance that their health information is being protected while having the flow of health information needed to promote and provide high quality health care and to make sure that the public health is being protected (HHS.gov, n.d.). By doing so brings a balance that allows important uses of information while still protecting the people privacy within the facility (HHS.gov, n.d.). Anything forced by the Privacy Rule are held accountable for abiding by those requirements in March 2002 the Privacy Rule was released to the public for any comments (HHS.gov, n.d.). HIPAA includes don’t tell anyone anything meaning all the information you know should not be shared with a coworker, a friend, or a family member, mental health patients and caregivers causes problems with the law because the inability of sharing information can most

Over the past few years, the development of the Internet and the intrusive surveillance capabilities of these technologies have caused privacy to become a major political and social issue for millions of Americans who go online.  Companies employ a variety of tools to gather marketable information on American citizens.  Most of the use of this information is for personalized advertisement and to create databases of target audiences.  While these activities may appear to be nothing more than annoyances for a majority of Americans, there is the hidden danger of the loss of privacy.

The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare brought up the issue of “Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens” in the 1973 Hew report (The Privacy Act of 1974, n.d.). They recommended Congress produce legislation protecting medical information, and the application of principles to follow in that process. After much debate over two separate bills, between the House and the Senate, the Privacy Act melded the two bills together into one as a compromise, and was enacted in 1974 (The Privacy Act of 1974, n.d.). The Privacy Act developed four procedural and substantive rights concerning personal data. These rights require government agencies to share any individual records they kept on someone, following fair information

Our Bill of Rights, consider privacy as a legal element of human rights. Privacy restrains our government and the private sector to both act in ways that don’t threaten individuals’ privacy. For this basic reason, the Privacy Act was enacted in 1974 by The Department of Justice. The Privacy Act of 1974 defines by governing how information is collected, maintained, used, and disseminated about individuals in systems of records by federal agencies. The Privacy Act requires that agencies give the public notice of their systems of records by publication in the Federal Register. The Privacy Act

citizens a common law right to privacy against publications (Murray, 1997). The common law right to privacy has evolved through time, and the United States had reacted differently to specific information privacy concerns. Dimov (2013) reported, interestingly, that on the federal level, the United States sustained a sectorial method towards data protection legislation in which certain industries are protected and others are not (p. 4). The following are three federal data protection laws indicated as of great importance in the United States: (1) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) - governs the collection and distribution of health and financial data; (2) Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA) - protects

The words, “Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say” were said by Edward Snowden who is a computer professional in America. Similarly, the essays “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty,” “Web Users Get as Much as They Give,” and “Facebook Is Using You” from Nicholas Carr, Jim Harper, and Lori Andrews respectively points out that the internet privacy is good and bad. However, the articles by Carr and Andrews are based on the negative side of the internet privacy, which means that the internet privacy is not good. On the other hand, Harper’s article is based on the positive side of the internet privacy, which means that the internet privacy is good and scary, but people need to be careful of their own information and browsing histories, and websites. Jim Harper’s essay is more relevant and reasonable than the Nicholas Carr and Lori Andrews’s essays. However, Harper seems more persuasive to readers because he believes that the internet is good if people use it in a right way, whereas Carr and Andrews believe that the internet is not good at all.

The concern about privacy on the Internet is increasingly becoming an issue of international dispute. ?Citizens are becoming concerned that the most intimate details of their daily lives are being monitored, searched and recorded.? (www.britannica.com) 81% of Net users are concerned about threats to their privacy while online. The greatest threat to privacy comes from the construction of e-commerce alone, and not from state agents. E-commerce is structured on the copy and trade of intimate personal information and therefore, a threat to privacy on the Internet.

Today, individuals are sacrificing privacy in order to feel safe. These sacrifices have made a significant impact on the current meaning of privacy, but may have greater consequences in the future. According to Debbie Kasper in her journal, “The Evolution (Or Devolution) of Privacy,” privacy is a struggling dilemma in America. Kasper asks, “If it is gone, when did it disappear, and why?”(Kasper 69). Our past generation has experienced the baby boom, and the world today is witnessing a technological boom. Technology is growing at an exponential rate, thus making information easier to access and share than ever before. The rapid diminishing of privacy is leaving Americans desperate for change.

Privacy either encourages or is a necessary factor of human securities and fundamental value such as human embarrassment, independence, distinctiveness, freedom, and public affection. Being completely subject to mutual scrutiny will begin to lose self-respect, independence, distinctiveness, and freedom as a result of the sometimes strong burden to conform to public outlooks.