Difference between revisions of "Talk:Student Projects:Database Protection"

Revision as of 19:18, 4 November 2004

(moved from the main Database Protection page, which I want to make a more publicly-viewable page)

Thanks for putting all this together for us Damon! I like your thoughts on Database Protection (posted on the original page). I guess there are two environments in general I should look at, the first is private sector research loosely defined as "for profit research" and public sector research. I think the public sector angle is interesting as HIPPA confounds collaberation in an environment where protecting your work really isn't the goal - in fact sharing your work is pretty much the whole point.

How do you guys want to proceed, are there specific topics that you're interested in? If so maybe we can figure out a format that allows us to head down different paths yet end up with a collaberative work at the end. If not maybe we can work different angles of the same specific topic, or...

David - glad to have you on board!

(Damon) As far as dividing things up, one thing we could do is have one person explore the arguments in favor of db protection and another person explore the arguments against, and then try to tie them together so that the paper as a whole is balanced.

I think we can do most of the work through this Wiki, but maybe we should meet or have a phone call or something to kick things off. Of course, we'll need some ideas to toss around, so maybe not immediately... do you guys want to get together next weekend, maybe? Or I could do Wednesday evening -- I'm afraid Wednesdays are my only completely free weeknights, though later in the evenings works on M and T. Or we could meet after class, or over pizza at the Husky Den beforehand.

(DonT) Hi Damon, first thing I need to do is figure out how to "sign" my input as my previous stuff isn't signed and this signiture was placed by ripping off your signature and changing the relevent bits - any guidance would be appreciated as I clearly can't figure it out for myself.

Meeting would be great, I know over the weekend we added a couple folks from the south to our group (WELCOME everyone!!! I'm not sure if any of you are Bears but if so maybe you could let us Huskies know how it feels to have a top 5 ranked football team or maybe just one that can cover the spread:) so we need to figure out how best to include them in the discussion.

If others in the group have specific areas of interest we might organize our paper as a compilation of articles discussing specific instances of database protection. This might allow individuals with specific interests to explore their topic in depth. Or possibly we could each explore our topic with an eye toward (as you suggest) arguments for and against database protection as it relates to that topic.

Just some thoughts...

(Damon) I guess maybe I'd like to do some research on the EU's Directive on the Legal Protection of Databases, their pressure on the US to enact something similar, and the talk of worldwide database treaties. Seems kind of unoriginal & bland, but in everything I've read it seems like there's a lot to understand there -- how these things came about, what cases have they cut their teeth on. Maybe I can focus on more recent stuff than has been covered in most of the literature we've been exposed to. It would probably be good for at least one person to go in that direction, anyway, for background & for the worldwide perspective. I'm still reading background material, but that's what seems interesting to me right now.

Another thing I want to look into is EPIC. Looks like they're concerned with the commodification of public record data, which is right up our alley.

Don & David, let me know if you feel like meeting before or after class tomorrow. Others... welcome to the group!

(DonT)Hi, so I've done a little digging on the HIPAA angle.

Looks very much as if HIPAA is the public policy which arose from the fact that technology was making it increasingly easy to access health care databases in a way that was damaging to the individual. It's easy to imagine scenarios where your health information might be used to "screen" you when - applying for insurance coverage, applying for a new job, applying for a mortgage etc.

Institutional Review Boards, IRBs, continue in their traditional role as gatekeepers for data under their control but now must make certain that researchers protect any patient identifiable data and gather adequate consent from people involved in medical trials. Often researchers are granted access to only "sanitized" data, data which has had all patient identifiers removed. This protection of patient identifiable data often makes collaberation between researchers difficult. For example if two researchers are looking at similar patient populations they may want to collaberate but they need to make certain that their patient populations are separate and distinct, this is difficult with out the presence of patient identifiable data. Another example would be two researchers looking at similar populations but measuring different outcomes - maybe diabetes and osteoporosis for example. The two researchers may decide that valuable insights could be gained if they could study individuals who were tracked in both studies. Without patient indentifiable data this would again be very difficult.

I'm not sure this is heading where I thought it was when I started but it's interesting (to me) anyway.

(DonT)Hi Damon, meeting before class would be great. I'm going to be sort of difficult to get a hold of for the rest of the day. So how bout I just show up at the main HUB cafeteria - by the food court at 5:15. No problem if you can't make it, but if you can we'll see you then.

On a completely different note I talked with a research Doc at the UW regarding my hypothesis that HIPAA or the lack of HIPAA has made conducting medical research much easier in Europe. His feeling is that it isn't the lack of HIPAA but instead socialized medicine (which puts the care and feeding of patient data all under one umbrella) that gives European researchers an edge.