UT Southwestern Ethics Grand Rounds

Addressing Urgent Privacy Challenges in Healthcare through the Lens of Contextual Integrity

Helen Nissenbaum, Ph.D.

Professor, Information Science, and Director, Digital Life Initiative, Cornell Tech

Abstract: In healthcare, as in other social spheres, digital technology has posed dire challenges to entrenched approaches to privacy. Yet, as a fundamental cornerstone of ethical healthcare, privacy cannot be allowed to erode. The theory of contextual integrity (CI), which defines privacy as appropriate flow of personal information answers the need for a meaningful concept of privacy that, simultaneously explains its value to individuals and to societies. CI requires that we bend away from one-dimensional ideas, which for decades have gripped the privacy domain, namely, control over information about ourselves, stoppage of flow, or fetishization of specific, "sensitive" attributes (e.g., identity, health). This lecture will review key ideas behind CI, contrast it with alternative accounts, and apply these ideas to the domain of intensive health care and health research domains, distinctive not only for their societal importance but for their ages-long attentiveness to privacy.

CME: This activity has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ in Medical Ethics and/or Professional Responsibility.

NCPD: UT Southwestern Medical Center is accredited as a provider of nursing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation.

This activity has been awarded 1.0 contact hour.

For additional information about the lecture, please refer to the announcement.

Contact:

Ruth Vinciguerra | Email