Category «Healthcare»

Your medical provider might be recording your mental health care visits

Mental health providers are increasingly using AI technology to record conversations, raising privacy concerns among patients and practitioners. Roxsy Lin informs us that during these sessions, mental health professionals are required to obtain patients’ consent before using the tool. However, as shared by multiple providers, that consent process does not include explanations about how the information is handled. Nor does it say how long and where recordings are stored, or who has access to the data.

Subjects: AI, Healthcare, Privacy

Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research, Public Health and the Rule of Law – Part 9

This article is the ninth in a series by Sabrina I. Pacifici focused on the Trump administration’s unrelenting policy of attacking science, healthcare, public health, and the rule of law. The cornerstone of this series are topical highlights on hundreds of anti-government actions conducted by this administration. The greater goal of the series is to identify the consequences of these actions to shatter the health and welfare of our nation – terms broadly used to encompass our nation’s democracy. Together these articles form an actionable pathfinder to identify what must be restored or recreated and relaunched, when we commence the hard work of rebuilding our government.

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Resources, Health, Healthcare, KM, Leadership, Legal Research, Medical Research, United States Law

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 29, 2026

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, 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. Five highlights from this week: Peter G. Neumann, Who Warned of Computer Security Risks beginning in 2010, Dies at 93; California Sues Owner of Former 23andMe; Troops’ phones leaked location data to foreign adversaries; FBI Warns Companies About Ransom Gang’s Fake IT Support Tactics; and Crypto Security Pioneer: ‘I Now Consider All of Decentralized Finance Unsafe’.

Subjects: AI, Cryptocurrency, Cybersecurity, Healthcare, Privacy

The form asked my permission to share my health data. Then it wouldn’t let me say no.

Over the last year, Alex Rosenblat, Director of Sociotechnical Research, The Markup, interviewed more than 20 patients, healthcare providers, experts and advocates about the privacy forms they must sign to get care at their providers’ offices. Time and again she was told the same thing: Across the country, from large hospital systems to small, private clinics, patients are being asked to sign waivers blindly without knowing exactly what they’re signing. When patients ask to see more, staff usually don’t have an easy way to show them. When patients do get the forms, it tells them all the ways their medical data will be shared and reused, and some of the ways patients can refuse. But electronic systems make it impossible to opt out on the spot, requiring follow up emails. Records sharing between unaffiliated providers through these networks can benefit patients by making their scattered records more visible to the provider who is treating them. But it can also harm patients.

Subjects: Big Data, Healthcare, Legal Research, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 25, 2026

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, 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. Five highlights from this week: We Don’t Really Know How A.I. Works. That’s a Problem; Online Betting Is Fueling a Wave of Bankruptcies Among Young Americans; Anthropic’s Mythos Model Is Being Accessed by Unauthorized Users; Google unleashes even more AI security agents to fight crime; and Sam Altman’s Creepy Eyeball-Scanning Company Gets in Bed With Zoom and Tinder.

Subjects: AI, Big Data, Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Healthcare, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 4, 2026

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, 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. Five highlights from this week: This Company Is Secretly Turning Your Zoom Meetings into AI Podcasts; Beware Dr. Chatbot: Privacy laws don’t protect health care data from AI; This new scam could trick you into downloading malware; Wireless Router Ratings & Reviews; and Report: Voice-Based Phishing Surges to New Heights.

Subjects: AI, Computer Security, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Healthcare, Internet Trends, Privacy, Technology Trends

The Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research, Public Health, and the Rule of Law – Part 8

This article by Sabrina I. Pacifici is the eighth in a series with a focus on the continuing onslaught on science, healthcare and public health, and the rule of law. Since the 1990s, the public and private sectors have mobilized to coordinate, fund, build, expand and sustain one of most vibrant and impactful scientific communities in the world. But in little more than one year, this administration has engaged in a relentless campaign of targeted and sustained attacks against America’s highly interconnected network structure of scientific research and development. The specifics of the dozens of destructive actions taken by this administration have been documented in this series. The overall goal of these articles is to track and identify the magnitude of the loses we have sustained and the damage done to our democracy, economy, the lives of countless Americans who will suffer from the termination of vital research and routine vaccinations, and to our free and fair elections.

Subjects: Economy, Education, Government Resources, Health, Healthcare, KM

The Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research, Public Health, and the Rule of Law – Part 7

This article is the seventh in a series focused on how the second Trump presidency unleashed a causal chain that has rapidly morphed into an extensive continued attack against civil liberties, commerce, government funded programs, research and the rule of law. The attacks quickly escalated beyond the federal sector into the private and non-profit arenas. In alignment with the Project 2025 roadmap cultural, historical and political censorship has made deep inroads into many aspects of American life. Sabrina I. Pacifici continues to identify new as well as expanded examples of administration directed censorship in the public and private sectors, along with the elimination of programs, services and data critical to education, healthcare, the environment, climate science, defense and the economy.

Subjects: Big Data, Civil Liberties, Congress, Economy, Food, Government Resources, Healthcare, Human Rights, Immigration Law, KM, Social Media

Hold Fast, Harvard

Since 2025 the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has engaged in battles with major American institutions of higher education and research. Using the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, McMahon demands strict adherence to “educational principles” that include elimination of ‘DEI’ programs to quality for ‘preferential federal funding.’ In the case of Harvard University, this funding is on the order of $2.2 billion annually. Lawyer Kyle K. Courtney unravels the litigation at the heart of Harvard’s effort to preserve academic freedom and deny the administration another huge payoff with no transparency as to where the exortion money actually ends up.

Subjects: Economy, Education, Financial System, Free Speech, Healthcare, Legal Research, Medical Research, United States Law