An Internet ID for All Americans?

From CBS News:

President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.

It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies.

The announcement came at an event today at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Schmidt spoke.

The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)

"We are not talking about a national ID card," Locke said at the Stanford event. "We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities."

No, they're not talking about a national ID card, just an international internet ID.

Imagine. Anyone registered with such a cyber-ID who conferences with their doctor via a "secure server" can also be tracked by the government with such a mechanism.

And the issue of not needing more than one password? While convenient, the ramifications of multiple accounts being compromised if a data leak were to occur remains with such a mechanism.

But fear not:

Details about the "trusted identity" project are unusually scarce. Last year's announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions.

Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. "I don't have to get a credential if I don't want to," he said. There's no chance that "a centralized database will emerge," and "we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this," he said.

No doubt you won't have to be "credentialed" unless you want to use a government service. (They have to be sure you're a "trusted user," right?)

Like Medicare or Medicaid.

Privacy? Who needs privacy?

-Wes

Reference: Draft Document: "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace," (pdf) dated 25 June 2010.

Text Paging Health Information

I saw this in a recent nursing note:

Urine noted to be bloody without clots.
Text message sent to 2290 (trauma pager) about hematuria.
Patient denies any pain at this time.

No doubt patient identification or their room number, was sent to identify the patient (I'm not sure which). I suppose a record of the physician covering the trauma service that night is discoverable.

But I wonder, in the world of cyberspace with electronic communication carrying such an important role in health care delivery lately, is HIPAA really enforceable or will it just be used to extract huge fines from care providers now that the new HITECH policy expands HIPAA's reach.

Since text pages are neither encoded nor retained as an official audit trail of care delivered, it seems to me care providers are vulnerable, even when they are doing the right thing for the patient.

-Wes