Sunday, July 15, 2012

Please remember - there is no privacy or confidentiality on the internet

Reminding myself of this as well as any readers of this blog, and please pass along the reminder to your  library users: the internet is public. I am certain that I (and you, and yes, even you) have written emails that were sent in confidence - but there really isn't any confidence. Our confidential records can be made un-confidential on a moment's notice. As far as we know, our employers are copying our keystrokes. As far as we know, Blogger is keeping track of words that were deleted before posts were published. As far as we know, our internet providers are turning on the microphones and cameras on our home equipment. As far as we know, the laptops that hold our electronic health information can be stolen out of a car.

One example of capturing all computer activity of a group to conduct a surveillance project:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/fda-surveillance-of-scientists-spread-to-outside-critics.html?pagewanted=all 

As to confidentiality, again a story about the FDA:
FDA investigates release of files on devices
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303612804577529202785616274.html
-confidential files on medical devices that had yet to be approved were outsourced for printing, and the outsource had the files available to the public on a website.