Facebook admits it discussed sharing user data for medical research project; The Guardian, April 5, 2018

Amanda Holpuch, The Guardian; Facebook admits it discussed sharing user data for medical research project

[Kip Currier: Timely to see this article, after discussing HIPAA and medical research data in my lecture yesterday on "Legal and Ethical Issues of Research Data Management (RDM)". And after my post here, responding to John Podhoretz's "sorry, you are a fool" New York Post opinion piece.]

"Medical institutions are held to a higher privacy standard than Facebook because of laws such as the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or Hipaa, which makes it illegal for health care providers and insurers to share patient data without their permission.

But it is not clear how the proposed research would have complied with this strict health privacy law.

Two people who heard Facebook’s pitch and one person familiar with it told CNBC that the proposed project would mesh data from health systems (such as diagnoses and prescribed medications) with data from Facebook (such as age, friends and likes). The idea would be to match what is known about a patient’s lifestyle with their medical needs to customize care."