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background - privacy
Privacy is embraced as a fundamental human right in many countries of the world, and touted as such in universal declarations. Similarly, health is also seen to be a fundamental human right. Are the two mutually attainable, or does the pursuit of one compromise the other? If the latter then what are the consequences?
As public health professionals in many countries become increasingly "place-conscious", a new threat to privacy is being perceived. There is a growing realisation in public health that geographical location is, in many cases, most useful at its most precise scale. However, the collection and use of this information increases identification risks of individuals in the population, and therefore compromises the privacy of these individuals. It seems that these two fundamental human rights - if we perceive them as such - can indeed clash. In fact, privacy has been perceived by some to be a stumbling block and barrier to effective and efficient public health practice. The current research focuses on this issue, looking specifically at issues of location privacy in public health research - in other words, where the necessity of using granular geographical information threatens to reveal the identity of the individual(s) to whom it pertains. To begin to understand the issue better, however, requires that we also try to understand what the legislation actually does and does not say. As the survey conducted in both Canada and the United Kingdom showed, public health professionals perceive the two biggest related barriers within this issue to be bureaucracy and legislation.
A tool summarising the relevant legislation, particularly as it applies to public health and the definitions and applications of personally identifiable data (PID) or information would be highly beneficial. A prototype of what such a tool might look like will be posted on this site in the very near future.
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