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If You Think Your Health Is a Private Matter, See What’s Happening to Your Data
Seeking help for substance abuse. Monitoring your glucose levels. Signing up to get therapy through virtual visits. Sharing symptoms to a portal that sets up a doctor visit. Ordering prescriptions online.
There’s an enormous trove of personal health information people now feed or tap into digital monitors, health apps, search engines and other online tools. If the same information were provided in your doctor’s office, your privacy would be safeguarded. If you’ve ever sat in a doctor’s waiting room filling out a multi-page questionnaire about your health status and history, you get the picture. But that’s not how the digitized health world works.
Instead, we have an ecosystem of abuse in which technology companies that have become central to the way people now access healthcare or monitor their health operate largely outside the federal law that requires doctors and other medical personnel, hospitals and insurers to protect an individual’s intimate health information.
That means tech companies can — and do — mine your digital data for clues about your health status, accessing information like prescriptions you have purchased and other health services you might have sought, and potentially link this information to your name, address, email address and other personally identifying information. The data can then be used by platforms including Facebook and Google to help advertisers target promotions or other communications to you.
Growth of AI in Mental Health Raises Fears of Its Ability to Run Wild
The rise of AI in mental healthcare has providers and researchers increasingly concerned over whether glitchy algorithms, privacy gaps and other perils could outweigh the technology’s promise and lead to dangerous patient outcomes.
Why it matters: As the Pew Research Center recently found, there’s widespread skepticism over whether using AI to diagnose and treat conditions will complicate a worsening mental health crisis.
Mental health apps are also proliferating so quickly that regulators are hard-pressed to keep up. The American Psychiatric Association estimates there are more than 10,000 mental health apps circulating on app stores. Nearly all are unapproved.
Driving the news: The fear is now concentrated around whether the technology is beginning to cross a line and make clinical decisions, and what the Food and Drug Administration is doing to prevent safety risks to patients.
The FBI Just Admitted It Bought U.S. Location Data
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has acknowledged for the first time that it purchased U.S. location data rather than obtaining a warrant. While the practice of buying people’s location data has grown increasingly common since the U.S. Supreme Court reined in the government’s ability to warrantlessly track Americans’ phones nearly five years ago, the FBI had not previously revealed ever making such purchases.
The disclosure came today during a U.S. Senate hearing on global threats attended by five of the nation’s intelligence chiefs. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, put the question of the bureau’s use of commercial data to its director, Christopher Wray: “Does the FBI purchase U.S. phone-geolocation information?”
Wray said his agency was not currently doing so, but he acknowledged that it had in the past. He also limited his response to data companies gathered specifically for advertising purposes.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Says Congress Should Really Do Something About This AI Thing
Those pushing for AI regulation have a strange new ally. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest pro-business lobbying group in the country, released a report on generative artificial intelligence Thursday, calling on lawmakers to create some sort of regulation around the ballooning technology.
At the same time, the chamber’s report offers very few examples or specifics on where this regulation should go, save for a “risk-based approach” to regulating AI. While this could be the kind of real push lawmakers need to act on forming meaningful regulation, at this point, it seems poised to offer more limp regulation that won’t actually help some of the people most impacted by AI development.
In the report, chamber President and CEO David Hirschmann called for a more responsible and ethical deployment of AI, writing “for Americans to reap the benefits of AI, people must trust it.” The report noted AI is projected to add $13 trillion to global economic growth by 2030, but of course, economic crystal ball projections are less than reliable. The report also estimated that over the next 10 to 20 years, “virtually every business and government agency will use AI.”
Thousands of Unvaccinated Service Members Could Still Be Booted Over Rescinded COVID Policy
Thousands of military service members could still be discharged because they didn’t apply for a COVID-19 vaccination exemption — even though the U.S. Department of Defense rescinded its mandate in January.
Members of the House Armed Services Committee blasted the DOD’s handling of its mandate as 69,000 out of 2 million active service members never received a vaccine, according to data sent to Congress members last week.
Approximately 53,000 sought an exemption or accommodation, leaving about 16,000 who could be axed for noncompliance with the rescinded vaccine policy, according to data supplied by Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Gilbert Cisneros in response to a letter from Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Jim Banks, R-Ind.
Cisneros’ letter noted that roughly 8,100 service members have already been separated for not complying with the vaccine mandate, though the data did not specify how many of those applied for an exemption.
Banks grilled Cisneros during a recent hearing in which he cited a study from The Lancet that found natural immunity against COVID-19 is as effective as vaccination. Noting the novelty of the virus, Cisneros said “natural immunity is not something we believe in for this.”
Merchant Marine Academy Still Won’t Take COVID Vaccine Exemptions
Months after the Pentagon lifted its COVID-19 vaccine mandates, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy has kept its requirement in place — denying all requests from potential midshipmen for religious or medical exemptions, The Post has learned.
In a Tuesday letter to the Kings Point academy’s superintendent, Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) demanded the USMMA rescind the “blanket denial,” claiming it violates school officials’ oath to “support and defend the Constitution.”
“As of today, the USMMA’s website says that ‘neither medical nor religious exemption requests will be accepted or processed for vaccination requirements,’” he said.
Banks, a member of the Navy Reserve who served in Afghanistan and is currently chairman of the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel, added the mandate violates federal law, citing a Supreme Court ruling and 2017 executive order that “clearly states individuals with religious objections to certain forms of medical treatment are allowed to opt out of such treatment.”
COVID Generation Is ‘Less Smart’ as Result of Pandemic Lockdowns, Study Finds
The COVID generation is less smart as a result of lockdowns at the height of the pandemic, according to a new study. And researchers found no evidence that students have been able to make up the gap since schools started to fully re-open.
An entire generation of students had their education disrupted during the pandemic, with simulations predicting a learning loss equivalent to between 0.3 and 1.1 school years and a global learning loss of $10 trillion.
Now researchers have found that the deficit also extends to students’ intelligence, according to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, published by the Public Library of Science. IQ tests carried out on students affected by COVID lockdowns found their scores were significantly lower than comparable students in previous generations, with a difference of 7.62 IQ points between students who took the test in 2020 and those who did it in 2002.
Testing the students again a year later, after schools had fully reopened, found no sign they were catching up. The tests were taken by students in grades seven, eight and nine in grammar schools in Germany in 2020, six months after the beginning of the lockdown and then again 10 months later.
Matt Hancock COVID Memoirs Censored Over Wuhan Lab Leak Comments
The Telegraph via MSN reported:
Matt Hancock was censored by the Cabinet Office over his concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic began with a lab leak in Wuhan, the Lockdown Files reveals. The former health secretary was told to tone down claims in his book because the Government feared it would “cause problems” with China.
Mr. Hancock wanted to say that the Chinese explanation — that the virus being discovered close to a government science lab in Wuhan was coincidental — “just doesn’t fly.” But, in correspondence from late last year and leaked to the Telegraph, the Cabinet Office told him that the Government’s position was that the original outbreak’s location was “entirely coincidental.”
It is the first time that the British position has been categorically stated. Mr. Hancock was warned that to differ from this narrative, which resembles China’s version of events, risked “damaging national security”.
In his book, Pandemic Diaries, Mr. Hancock also wanted to write that “Global fear of the Chinese must not get in the way of a full investigation into what happened” but this too was watered down.
San Francisco Police Officer ‘Separated’ for Refusing COVID Vaccine Champions Free Choice: ‘I Know Who I Am’
When COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in the spring of 2021, some businesses announced that if employees wanted to keep their jobs, they’d have to get the jab. Most people complied — but many did not.
The Mayo Clinic, New York City, United Airlines and many healthcare facilities nationwide were among the organizations that terminated employees who remained unvaccinated. Some law enforcement agencies also fired staffers who refused the vaccine — including the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD).
Joel Aylworth was among the SFPD officers who had to turn in their badges when they failed to comply with the vaccine mandate. “As a Christian, I don’t believe in injecting biological substances into my blood,” Aylworth told Fox News Digital in a phone interview. Aylworth said he also believed that as a healthy man in his 30s, he was not at risk for the adverse effects of COVID.
On Aug. 19, 2021, Aylworth filed for a religious exemption, he said. Aylworth’s exemption was approved by the SFPD’s human resources department, he said. Less than a month later, on Sept. 16, he received an email informing him that his original exemption was no longer valid.
After answering the second round of questions, Aylworth said he received another letter noting that his religious exemption was no longer valid based on his latest responses. “All 150 of us who were previously approved did not get approved this time around,” he said. “Everyone in the department got denied.”
