SCOTUS hearing a case on limiting data mining

[thewayne]

I thought this oddly congruent with the current stink over iPhone/Android location data collection.

The story, interestingly enough, isn't about computers: it's about pharmacy records. In Vermont, patient pharmacy records are, of course, confidential. Doctor's pharmacy prescription orders are not. So pharmacies have been selling the data to aggregators who sell it back to drug reps and companies, who can then target doctors who prescribe lots of generics, stuff like that.

The patient side of the data is anonymized, but apparently you can still track patient drug use, you just can't tie it to a patient.

The Vermont doctor's did not like this, so they got a law passed banning said aggregation. The aggregators appealed and got it overturned, Vermont appealed it to the Supreme Court.

The issue being debated is actually free speech, and it has a couple of interesting twists that I can't really do justice to relating it here, so read the fine article if you're interested.

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/26/135703500/supreme-court-weighs-whether-to-limit-data-mining

Comments

[silveradept]

That is an interesting case. I wonder how it will turn out - maybe it can be used as leverage to stop some of the rampant data mining and selling going on - which might cut down on data breaches getting all sorts of data on people.