Over the past year, technology titans including Google, Apple, Microsoft and IBM have been hiring leaders in biomedical research to bolster their efforts to change medicine.
In many ways, the migration of clinical scientists into technology corporations that are focused on gathering, analysing and storing information is long overdue. Because of the costs and difficulties of obtaining data about health and disease, scientists conducting clinical or population studies have rarely been able to track sufficient numbers of patients closely enough to make anything other than coarse predictions. Given such limitations, who wouldn't want access to Internet-scale, multidimensional health data; teams of engineers who can build sensors for data collection and algorithms for analysis; and the resources to conduct projects at scales and speeds unthinkable in the public sector?
Yet there is a major downside to monoliths such as Google or smaller companies such as consumer-genetics firm 23andMe owning health data — or indeed, controlling the tools and methods used to match people's digital health profiles to specific services.
If undisclosed algorithmic decision-making starts to incorporate health data, the ability of black-box calculations to accentuate pre-existing biases in society could greatly increase. Crucially, if the citizens being profiled are not given their data and allowed to share the information with others, they will not know about incorrect or discriminatory health actions — much less be able to challenge them. And most researchers won't have access to such health data either, or to the insights gleaned from them.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @10:41AM
Can I get her gaping proprietary maw down on my pole?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @12:33PM
What could go wrong? These companies are in this game for the benefit of humanity and myself in specific. They tell me so themselves. Google for instance tells me that their motto is "Don't be evil" and I believe them...
Seriously though, do NOT WANT. It's already bad enough that your credit score is determined (in part, but in part nonetheless) by who you're FB friends with and what you post on that site (e.g. here [socialmediaweek.org] or here [womansday.com]); I don't want any more data than what they already have available to them because it won't be used to my advantage. It'll be used to squeeze the last penny out of me and when they're done with that, they'll squeeze some more, then a little bit more and only then discard you.
Where's HIPAA in all of this? Why isn't this information protected? Have we started eroding that protection as well because "it's only FB, it's on the internet and thus 'not real'. And after all, it's not that important information. So what if they use it for advertising, what's so bad about that? What do you have to hide anyway? Are you a terrorist maybe or a pedophile? I noticed you don't have a FB account, you must be up to no good and deserve to be put under 24/7 surveillance..."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @12:41PM
Seriously though, do NOT WANT. It's already bad enough that your credit score is determined (in part, but in part nonetheless) by who you're FB friends with and what you post on that site (e.g. here or here);
To be honest, if you use Facebook, you're quite the tadpole sucker. It doesn't make what these companies are doing right, but it isn't a good idea to use sites which abuse their users' privacy like Facebook.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @12:43PM
OP here, I just would like to categorically state that none of my devices is allowed to connect to any IP within the ranges owned or operated by FB. (Before anyone tries to rip my 'grumpy old man' card from my hands)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday July 26 2016, @03:17PM
Way to miss the point. GP was using facebook as an example, were the decisions don't matter as much. (It is only money after all).
Credit agencies treat lack of information as worse than bad information. That gives you an incentive to get into their system.