Category «Health»

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, June 30, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Amazon delays virtual care service’s unveiling after senators raised privacy concern; FBI launches national ‘swatting’ database amid rising incidents; How Do Some Companies Get Compromised Again and Again?; and Does ChatGPT Save My Data? OpenAI’s Privacy Policy Explained.

Subjects: AI, Big Data, Congress, Criminal Law, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Economy, Education, Email Security, Financial System, Health, Healthcare, Legal Research, Privacy

Suicide Hotlines Promise Anonymity. Dozens of Their Websites Send Sensitive Data to Facebook

Reporter Colin Lecher and Data Journalist Jon Kreeger discuss how websites for mental health crisis resources across the country—which promise anonymity for visitors, many of whom are at a desperate moment in their lives—have been quietly sending sensitive visitor data to Facebook. Dozens of websites tied to the national mental health crisis 988 hotline, which launched last summer, transmit the data through a tool called the Meta Pixel, according to testing conducted by The Markup. That data often included signals to Facebook when visitors attempted to dial for mental health emergencies by tapping on dedicated call buttons on the websites.

Subjects: Big Data, Health, Healthcare, KM, Legal Research, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 7, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: You Can’t Trust Your Browser’s ‘Lock’ to Tell You a Website Is Safe; So long passwords, thanks for all the phish; Amazon Clinic patients must sign away some privacy rights under HIPAA; and Apple and Google Collaborate on Anti-Stalker Tech.

Subjects: AI, Communications, Criminal Law, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Commerce, Health, KM, Privacy, Search Engines, Search Strategies, Social Media

Mifepristone is under scrutiny in the courts, but it has been used safely and effectively around the world for decades

A flurry of court rulings in April 2023 has left the future of the abortion pill mifepristone in question. For now, a U.S. Supreme Court decision on April 21 allows the drug to remain accessible without additional restrictions as the merits of the case are weighed in lower court proceedings. Depending on the outcome, the pill could face a ban or tightened restrictions on its usage, a possibility that has many health care providers concerned. Grace Shih, a family physician practicing in Washington state, explains the science behind mifepristone as well as its safety and efficacy in medication abortions.

Subjects: Food & Drug Law, Health, Healthcare, Legal Research, Privacy, Supreme Court, United States Law

2023 Healthcare MiniGuide

Marcus P. Zillman’s guide addresses the challenging landscape of healthcare information that proliferates on the internet. A large measure of the information hosted on self described authoritative health and healthcare sites is grounded in speculative, e-commerce drive subject matter. Search engines drive traffic to these sites with no transparent and accountable data – the objective being SEO, web tracking and other revenue driven applications. This guide identifies reliable, accurate sites that publish data and research, as well as provide applications, on traditional western as well as some eastern medicine, sponsored and published by government, NGO/IGO, research and academic institutions, hospitals, subject matter journals – in the United States and abroad.

Subjects: Health, Healthcare, Internet Resources, Search Engines, Search Strategies

As viral infections skyrocket, masks are still a tried-and-true way to help keep yourself and others safe

The cold and flu season of 2023 has begun with a vengeance. Viruses that have been unusually scarce over the past three years are reappearing at remarkably high levels, sparking a “tripledemic” of COVID-19, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. This November’s national hospitalization levels for influenza were the highest in 10 years. Emily Toth Martin and Marisa Eisenberg are infectious disease epidemiologists and researchers, and have spent our careers focused on understanding how viruses spread and how best to stop them. To respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, public health colleagues have had to quickly revive and apply decades of evidence on respiratory virus transmission to chart a path forward. Over the course of the pandemic, epidemiologists have established with new certainty the fact that one of our oldest methods for controlling respiratory viruses, the face mask, remains one of the most effective tools in a pandemic.

Subjects: Health, Healthcare, Medical Research

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 6, 2022

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Report – Hidden Harms: The Misleading Promise of Monitoring Students Online; Meta, US hospitals sued for using healthcare data to target ads; All software is guilty until proven innocent; and Twitter Faces A Surge In Account Data Requests By Governments.

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Commerce, Health, Healthcare, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media, Technology Trends

Policing Reimagined

The thesis of Albert Chang’s paper is the metaverse presents a unique opportunity for effective police reforms. Developers, data scientists, and legal sector experts working within the metaverse may be able to implement changes more efficiently than Congress as they are not subject to constitutional constraints. Chang advocates a position that the federal government should strongly consider the adoption of immersive technology to demonstrate that a more effective method of policing is possible. This paper is especially significant in light of the fact that last week Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act which will bolster research with $290 billion in new funding.

Subjects: Blockchain, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Cryptocurrencies, Education, Health, Human Rights, Legal Research, Social Media, Technology Trends, United States Law

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, July 9, 2022

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Why more regulation of connected car technology is probably just up the road; Police sweep Google searches to find suspects. The tactic is facing its first legal challenge; Attackers are using deepfakes to snag remote IT jobs; and Free smartphone stalkerware detection tool gets dedicated hub.

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Gadgets/Gizmos, Health, Human Rights, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Technology Trends