"The ethics committee of the District of Columbia Bar is advising lawyers about some social media dangers in two ethics opinions released this month... One “apparently novel warning” is about lawyers who take positions on legal issues when blogging or tweeting, according to the ABA BNA Lawyer’s Manual. The ethics opinion says a lawyer’s positions on social media could be adverse to the interest of a client, inadvertently creating a conflict... Another new topic addressed is about the danger of allowing social media websites such as LinkedIn to access email contacts."
"Pittsburgh City Council forged ahead Wednesday with plans that could cost members triple-digit fines for leaking confidential details from closed-door meetings. Council members voted 7-1 to advance comprehensive revisions for their own operating rules, setting up the 15-page proposal for a final vote Monday. Dissenting Councilwoman Darlene Harris lashed out against potential fines that could reach $500 for members who breach attorney-client privilege, saying the idea amounts to “a gag order.”"
"Lauren and Ian Patrick, the parents of baby Finn, are a good case study. Initially, they were convinced they wanted the screening. But after an hour talking to a genetic counselor about all the ways this sequencing could go wrong, they decided against it. They learned that any genetic sequencing would go in their son's medical record, and it wouldn't be able to be removed. And while federal law prohibits genetic discrimination by health care providers and in the workplace, life insurers can still use genetic information to pick and choose whom they'll sell policies to. By the time the meeting was over, the Patricks' excitement had been replaced with concern."
"Some researchers may oppose sharing data they have worked hard to gather, or worry that others will analyze it incorrectly. Creating opportunities for collaboration on subsequent analysis may help alleviate these concerns. Of course, any data sharing must take patients’ privacy into account; patients must be informed before joining a clinical trial that their data may be shared and researchers must ensure that the data cannot be used to identify individuals. By making data available and supporting analysis, foundations, research institutions and drug companies can increase the benefit of clinical trials and pave the way for new findings that could help patients."
"HOW far would you go to protect your health records? Your privacy matters, of course, but consider this: Mass data can inform medicine like nothing else and save countless lives, including, perhaps, your own. Over the past several years, using some $30 billion in federal stimulus money, doctors and hospitals have been installing electronic health record systems. More than 80 percent of office-based doctors, including me, use some form of E.H.R. These systems are supposed to make things better by giving people easier access to their medical information and avoiding the duplication of tests and potentially fatal errors. Yet neither doctors nor patients are happy. Doctors complain about the time it takes to update digital records, while patients worry about confidentiality. Last month the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons went so far as to warn that E.H.R.s could “crash” the medical system. We need to get over it. These digital databases offer an incredible opportunity to examine trends that will fundamentally change how doctors treat patients. They will help develop cures, discover new uses for drugs and better track the spread of scary new illnesses like the Zika virus."
"Librarians in Japan have ditched their traditional regard for silence to accuse a newspaper of violating the privacy of Haruki Murakami, Japan’s best-known contemporary writer, after it revealed his teenage reading habits... The Kobe Shimbun revealed Murakami’s reading habits of half a century ago after obtaining the cards from the school’s library that carried borrower entries under the author’s name, Japanese media reported. The newspaper defended its actions, but the Japan Librarian Association accused it of violating the privacy of Murakami and other students whose names appear on the cards. “Disclosing the records of what books were read by a user, without the individual’s consent, violates the person’s privacy,” said an association report."
