Many popular women's health apps fail to meet basic data privacy and security standards, according to a review published in JMIR.
The study analyzed 23 of the most downloaded and highest rated femtech apps on Apple's App Store and Google Play by two independent reviewers on data privacy, data sharing and security assessment criteria. Sixteen of the apps were related to fertility, cycle tracking...
Leading French independent health insurer Alan has teamed up with data security company Tanker to bring end-to-end encryption to its telehealth chat platform. The service is the first telehealth chat platform available to the general public that is end-to-end encrypted.
WHY IT MATTERS
The Alan app links users with associated doctors through a messaging service or video-consultations, which enable...
Bahrain and Kuwait are using their COVID-19 contact tracing apps as mass surveillance tools, it has emerged. According to a new report released by Amnesty International, the two Gulf states, along with Norway, have released “some of the most invasive COVID-19 contact tracing apps around the world, putting the privacy and security of hundreds of thousands of people at risk.”
In its investigation,...
About the author: Anish Sebastian co-founded Babyscripts in 2013, which has partnered with dozens of health systems for its data-centric model in prenatal care. As the CEO of the startup, Anish has focused his efforts on product and software development, as well as evidence-based validation of their product. Prior to this, he founded a research analytics startup and served as a senior tech...
The increased spotlight on Google’s healthcare privacy practices doesn’t seem to be letting up, with the Washington Post publishing a story this morning detailing a botched arrangement between the tech giant and the National Institutes of Health back in 2017.
The two groups had a research arrangement centered on more than 100,000 chest X-ray images provided to Google by the NIH. However,...
Many healthcare and digital health stakeholders don’t believe that health tech companies fully understand the complexities of their market, according to a new survey published this week from law firm Ropes & Gray and media company Crain’s New York Business.
These data from nearly 300 respondents also suggest apprehensions surrounding healthcare partnerships with digital health companies, with...
Cloud technology opens up the potential for exciting innovations when it comes to the design and execution of clinical trials, but data security and privacy concerns are holding innovation at a snail’s pace.
Despite these misgivings, cloud-based solutions could in fact offer greater security, as well as the ability to access large pools of data that would improve an organization’s ability to...
This week, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced legislation to strengthen privacy and security protections for consumers’ personal health data, specifically the data involved in DNA testing kits and health tracking apps.
WHAT HAPPENED
The Protecting Personal Health Data Act would require HHS to create standards to protect the sensitivity of genetic data,...
After creating dummy accounts on highly-rated Android medical apps and analyzing their traffic, an investigation published Wednesday in BMJ found that nearly four in five shared users’ data with outside entities. What’s more, the Australian research team determined that several of those groups receiving the user information would likely be able to aggregate the data and use it to pinpoint a...
When health tech companies turn to distributed ledger technology, security is one of the key reasons they do it. But to say that blockchain is inherently more secure than other technologies would be a dangerous oversimplification.
In reality, blockchain is a novel technology for solving certain security problems. But to be truly useful in healthcare, it will need to be approached smartly and...
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