What's Privacy?

Clark, J. (n.d.). Social Media and Privacy. Air Medical Journal, 104-107. 2010



The medical field requires a Federal law that restricts access to individuals' private medical information.
The act is called HIPAA a.k.a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Although the medical community became very “privacy aware” in the age of  HIPAA, it has not done a very good job of defining acceptable behaviors relative to personal behavior (Clark, 2010)

A young engineer was creating a computer modeling for a company in Switzerland, his work was considered conception of the World Wide Web.
 His goal was to find a better way to organize files and link related documents on his hard drive on his computer in a “brain-like way.”1 He wanted a program that could “keep track of all the random associations one comes across in real life”1 and create a system that would facilitate sharing and updating information among researchers.
The issue here is not just patient privacy, but also the portrayal of organizations in the public eye (Clark, 2010).

The concept and reason behind this computer modeling program was very useful and also helpful to medical facilities and establishments that needed to pull up information but it went against our federal law that protects our people and keeps confidentiality.
 Never before have individuals had so much information at their fingertips, and never have people had such an opportunity to share information that they would never have considered sharing with strangers before (Clark, 2010).

The creation of this program was a big risk factor, although it was helpful to doctors and researchers, people that were within the files behind the screen wouldn't think or agree with what the new program had in mind. This is one of the scary things about social media, when it comes to peoples privacy it tends to be so hard to keep and respect.
If not protected by the Federal law who knows how many lawsuits, and lives would've been jeopardized. We ensure and trust certain applications, and places to keep our names and information confidential. But it seems inevitable, we have access to see everything someway somehow, there seems to be no privacy, or confidentiality.
As helpful we may think utilizing social media for certain benefits of the world, some laws are made to remain and be respected.