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There have been reports on this site, of severe healthcare provider (as in HIPAA protected data) privacy violations, that occurred via data broker intermediarie

There have been reports on this site, of severe healthcare provider (as in HIPAA protected data) privacy violations, that occurred via data broker intermediaries through popular social media platforms. You know, getting a $60 FedEx package consisting of baby formula, during the month that the baby you miscarried should have been born, that almost cost you your life too. The amount of bad medical data, erroneous medical data, and just medical errors in the US is actually unbelievably astonishing. Finding correlations in datasets (even the most perfect dataset!) for use in healthcare is a profoundly unethical social experiment, both among the population and the individual. We all know that the field of software engineering has faced scandal after scandal when it comes to ethics. The list of examples is practically endless now, and this is one of the most dangerous examples by far. I mean, it really should be apparent.

gruez 6y ago
Companies fedex $60 worth of goods to expectant mothers? Is that a thing?
- disabled 6y ago
  There are actually multiple people on here, who had wives who miscarried, who got a $60 promotional FedEx package of Enfamil (baby formula) on what was the exact expected date of their miscarried baby. So, it was not like it was hard to figure out that it was from medical data, and especially in one case, where they did not even know that they were pregnant when the miscarriage happened! You can find this stuff easily by using variants of code words from the post I made, to find the details that you want to learn about. However, this is the user who did incredible investigation work. (There are far more thoughtful posts over this incident if you just search for things like "USER" AND "Baby/Infant Formula": https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22pbm%22%20AND%20%22spooky23%22&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... You will find extremely insightful information if you further modify select key words in the search. It really is eye opening. Also, the Financial Times always had pretty impressive investigative work on data privacy, and not in an apocalyptic or fleeting sense. It is just incredibly well researched, and somehow, I have never been disappointed by their coverage.
r7ueehhrhrh 6y ago
This seems really uncompelling. So what, we pass on potentially saving lives because some people are getting mail that makes them sad? Because a trans person might get mail that targets their sex? None of the potential harm seems as bad as dying or even physical (unlike dying).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

gruez 6y ago

Companies fedex $60 worth of goods to expectant mothers? Is that a thing?

disabled 6y ago
There are actually multiple people on here, who had wives who miscarried, who got a $60 promotional FedEx package of Enfamil (baby formula) on what was the exact expected date of their miscarried baby. So, it was not like it was hard to figure out that it was from medical data, and especially in one case, where they did not even know that they were pregnant when the miscarriage happened! You can find this stuff easily by using variants of code words from the post I made, to find the details that you want to learn about. However, this is the user who did incredible investigation work. (There are far more thoughtful posts over this incident if you just search for things like "USER" AND "Baby/Infant Formula": https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22pbm%22%20AND%20%22spooky23%22&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... You will find extremely insightful information if you further modify select key words in the search. It really is eye opening. Also, the Financial Times always had pretty impressive investigative work on data privacy, and not in an apocalyptic or fleeting sense. It is just incredibly well researched, and somehow, I have never been disappointed by their coverage.

r7ueehhrhrh 6y ago

This seems really uncompelling. So what, we pass on potentially saving lives because some people are getting mail that makes them sad? Because a trans person might get mail that targets their sex? None of the potential harm seems as bad as dying or even physical (unlike dying).

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]