We can overlook the glaring age difference between the love-interested characters played by Sam Neill and Laura Dern in Jurassic Park, mostly because it was 1993 and that was just what happened back then. History has been known to repeat itself. Indeed, a new report by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) encourages the increased use of application programming interfaces (APIs) by saying this: “The use of APIs and apps to exchange data between systems is not new to health care.” Right. What is new is the impressive number of apps available now (like telehealth and sleep cycle apps, fitness trackers) that collect, display, and use many types of health data. Another recent change is the significant number of federal rules that mandate the use of APIs so all of these different apps and computer systems can “talk” to one another. One of ONC’s conclusions in its report is that “trust in APIs and apps will depend largely on having strong privacy and security controls.” So this is where we need a new strange bedfellow set — because we notice that there is not a lot of agreement on what to do on federal data privacy issues. There is, however, an extreme age difference between the under-40-years-old FTC Commissioners (here and here) that are so interested in consumer data privacy and the 70-years-old Congressional leaders (here and here) that introduced new data privacy legislation. We are only suggesting, of course, that maybe it is time for everyone — of all ages — to get along. Maybe go watch a movie.
June 17, 2022 | 3 min read
June 17, 2022
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