Loss of Privacy

Six officers enter and search a woman’s Bakersfield, California home without a warrant, saying federal law allows it.

The sheriff’s department is now investigating this incident.

Kaiser Permanente, a health-care provider based in Oakland, California is set to implement a massive gene database to research environmental and genetic causes of disease.

Researchers will be able to study the data and seek insights into the interplay between genes, the environment, and disease, thanks to access to detailed electronic health records, patient surveys, and even records of environmental conditions where the patients live and work.

“The importance of this project is that it will, almost overnight–well, in two years–produce a very large amount of genetic and phenotypic data that a large number of investigators and scientists can begin asking questions of, rather than having to gather data first,” Schaefer says.

The effort will make use of existing saliva samples taken from California patients, whose average age is 65. Their DNA will be analyzed for 700,000 genetic variations called single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, using array analysis technology from Affymetrix in Santa Clara, CA. Through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the resulting information will be available to other researchers, along with a trove of patient data including patients’ Kaiser Permanente electronic health records, information about the air and water quality in their neighborhoods, and surveys about their lifestyles.

While scientists should be commended for researching diseases, their causes and possible cures, there lies a risk of losing health coverage when this becomes the norm.  It will be near impossible to prevent insurance companies from looking at your data and denying coverage or vital surgeries because of possible risk factors.

How would you like pay-as-you-go insurance?  While places such as California are pushing it, the idea doesn’t seem to be taking off elsewhere.

Such insurance plans first became available in 2004, and are now available as a limited option in 30 US states from insurance companies like Progressive and Liberty Mutual. Uptake has been slow. Abroad, things are similar; the option for PAYD insurance is available in Australia, the UK, Ontario, Japan, and South Africa, but one UK insurer has dropped its PAYD program, citing extremely limited demand.

California isn’t pleased to let such programs live and die by consumer demand. The state’s Department of Insurance has announced it plans to mandate 100% adoption of PAYD insurance beginning next year. The program requires all insurers to utilize mileage driven in determining insurance rates for all their customers, with at least eight brackets of division by mileage. Lower-mileage customers would pay reduced rates.

Let’s just force everyone to be tracked no matter where they go.  Fortunately, organizations, such as the EFF, are fighting against this.

The EFF’s complaint centers on the fine details of these provisions. Under the new plan, while insurance companies offering both EM and AMD plans may offer discounts for AMD users, they are required to accept odometer readings for milage estimates. AMD-exclusive companies, however, may mandate installation of monitoring equipment in automobiles covered under their policies.

This monitoring equipment need not restrict itself to the recording of miles driven, the EFF interprets, but may additionally record and store other information including location, speed, acceleration, usage patterns, and driving habits. Moreover, insurance companies are authorized to use information collected from such a device to calculate insurance rates, without restriction on what such information is collected. This would allow insurance companies to change rates based on an incredible variety of driver behaviors.

Get off your butts, Californians, and fight this crap before it’s completely forced upon you.