Personal Medical Information Security, Engineering, and Ethics: Personal Information Workshop, Cambridge, UK, June 21 - 22, 1996, Proceedings [Paperback]

Ross Anderson (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 3540632441 | ISBN-13: 978-3540632443 | Publication Date: August 8, 1997 | Edition: 1

This book originates from an international workshop on personal information held at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge, UK, in June 1996. The workshop was organized under the joint sponsorship of the British Medical Association and the Isaac Newton Institute in the context of a six-month research program in computer security, cryptology, and coding theory. The revised workshop papers appearing in this volume reflect a lively interdisciplinary exchange of views and ideas between doctors, lawyers, privacy activists, and the computer security community. The volume gives a representative snapshot not merely of the state of the art of the medical computer security art in various countries, but of the complex interplay between human, political, and technical aspects.

Product Details

• Paperback: 261 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (August 8, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3540632441
• ISBN-13: 978-3540632443
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,981,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Editor's comments, January 12, 2001

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Ross Anderson (Cambridge, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Personal Medical Information Security, Engineering, and Ethics: Personal Information Workshop, Cambridge, UK, June 21 - 22, 1996, Proceedings (Paperback)

These are the proceedings of a conference I organized in Cambridge in June 1996, when a debate was raging on whether the British government had the right to collect complete medical records of everyone using the National Health Service, via a number of central databases then under construction. At the conference, we heard how the privacy of electronic medical records is handled in Britain, the USA, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Japan. Shortly after the conference, the Caldicott committee of enquiry was set up to look at the problem and devise medical privacy guidelines for the UK.

The papers presented in this conference are of wider interest, though. Arguments over who should know how much about people's medical history continue in a number of countries, and especially in the USA - where one of the last acts of the Clinton administration was to promulgate medical privacy regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The interpretation and implementation of these regulations will be a bone of contention for years to come. This volume documents the views expressed five years ago by some of the main protagonists in the US debate. It also contains useful technical matter on such issues as how to do access control in hospital computer systems and how to manage research databases of de-identified medical records.

I believe that the information contained in this volume will continue to cast light on such problems for many years to come. However much the technology changes, the political and philosophical issues are probably timeless.