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Comment by dingaling | Hacker News Reader

I think those examples are begging the question. Many people would say they don't care if a Government agency knows any of that info. Why should they care? Personally I'm not worried if GCHQ know that I went to the doctor about a rash.

I find a more convincing argument is that the data can be abused for purposes beyond that for which it was gathered; for example, the disclosures about the DEA and 'parallel construction' shocked many people with whom I work. People respond more to the risk that their misdeeds will be discovered ( be it simple cash-in-hand tax evasion or more nefarious activities ).

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>Personally I'm not worried if GCHQ know that I went to the doctor about a rash.

Except it can leave you vulnerable to blackmail. Say your rash is a symptom of a STD which was caused by a drunken one night stand with a x/y person you met at a bar. "Now you wouldn't your partner to find out would you?" says the guy in guy in the suit...

Other ways health records can be abused if your partner or child needs a transplant and they are way down the waiting list...

More ways your health records can be abused:

* 70% of Americans are currently using some form of prescription drug. Would you be comfortable if this information was given to, say, the next employer you interview with?

* Many health issues can be embarrassing for people, even relatively benign ones. This isn't always obvious until you've experienced it.

* Mental health issues often carry a social stigma. Yet 11% of the American population currently take antidepressants.

* Health records, by necessity, include vast amounts of personal information that isn't directly medical. Addresses. Phone numbers. Social security numbers.

Are you sure those statistics are right? Do you have a source for them? They just sound quite surprising to me (although I'm from the UK rather than the USA).

"Eleven percent of Americans aged 12 years and over take antidepressant medication."

from CDC/NCHS Data Brief: "Antidepressant Use in Persons Aged 12 and Over: United States, 2005–2008": http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db76.htm

"Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half take two, Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center researchers say."

from Mayo Clinic, "Nearly 7 in 10 Americans Take Prescription Drugs, Mayo Clinic, Olmsted Medical Center Find": http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2013-rst/7543.html

Thank you. It's great to have sources and they seem very good.

I would never have guessed that the number of people taking antidepressant drugs would be so high.

I think the first 2 examples do not necessarily affect your personal privacy but the knowledge that there are some checks and balances left. You are right that data leaks/abuse might be the biggest risk concerning the 3rd example.

But who would you know if the data is abused or not if journalists can't convince their potential sources that their communication is private?

And if you - on some way - get the knowledge that your data is abused, what can you do? Sue the government? That's a lot more difficult if you can assume that the other side has potentially access to your whole strategy and to every mistake you ever did in your whole life (dirty campaigning/blackmailing).

The real issue is that it really doesn't matter that government knows your personal data unless you've something to hide. The problem is that government does not care about one person. The data becomes a threat only in large scale, when it can be used to predict and control society: https://medium.com/surveillance-state/f16655a5879f

> government does not care about one person

"You wrote a letter critical of the governor. Let's see what's in your file, ..., hmm, it says here you went to LA when you told your wife you were going to SF. You wouldn't want us to tell her about that, would you?"

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