{"id":49898,"date":"2011-12-07T08:08:11","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T13:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=49898"},"modified":"2011-12-08T11:17:58","modified_gmt":"2011-12-08T16:17:58","slug":"protecting-the-privacy-of-consumer-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/12\/protecting-the-privacy-of-consumer-records\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting the Privacy of Consumer Records"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kristin<\/a>
Kristin Kelly, associate professor of political science. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The digitalization of daily life has made a number of things easier and faster \u2013 from paying bills to transferring records to simply communicating \u2013 but it also poses new threats to the privacy of consumers. Will your mobile device provider sell information about you to a third party? Will a server containing your credit card number be hacked? How secure are your electronic medical records?<\/p>\n

Those threats, how they\u2019re perceived by Americans \u2013 particularly regarding medical records \u2013 and what can be done about them are the focus of research being conducted by Kristin Kelly, associate professor of political science in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big question \u2013 and the objective of my research \u2013 is to really gain an understanding of what people are concerned about with regard to their privacy,\u201d says Kelly, who received the Faculty Excellence in Teaching at the Undergraduate Level from the UConn Alumni Association in October. \u201cPolitically, privacy doesn\u2019t typically have a lot of traction with most people, and it\u2019s a somewhat murky concept.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, in the United States there are efforts to speed the transition from paper medical files to electronic records, which can easily be shared by multiple medical providers. While this effort aims to enhance efficiency and reduce mistakes, it also raises questions: Who \u201cowns\u201d these records, who is responsible for safeguarding them \u2013 and do patients care?<\/p>\n

Kelly\u2019s research includes case studies, such as interviews with patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people are surprised by the amount of personal data about themselves that is out there,\u201d she says. \u201cBut you either have concerns about it, or you don\u2019t. Some see privacy protections as roadblocks, while others have a good deal of anxiety about their personal information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly says there is something of a generation gap between consumers. Older people are generally more concerned about their privacy than younger people. She notes that her undergraduate students in a course having to do with privacy rights were relatively savvy about their personal privacy, but came out of the class more alarmed about the issue than when they started.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they thought about the larger, long-term implications of how data is exchanged, and things like companies that exist solely to collect personal data, it certainly brought them a new level of awareness that led them to change their behavior as a result \u2013 especially on their phones and Facebook,\u201d says Kelly.<\/p>\n

She adds that her research has found there is not a great deal of confidence among consumers that companies have their best interests at heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers are interested in having a fair deal. They want to know that steps are being taken to protect sensitive data,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen it comes to medical records, consumers need to be educated, and plans designed by doctors and health care providers to address the needs and concerns of patients with regard to privacy need to be established.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere needs to be proactive public policy about these issues. What can businesses and [medical] practices do for people to help protect their privacy with some measure of assurance? Finding answers to this is one of the major goals of this research.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A UConn political scientist is studying people’s concerns about the privacy of their medical records and the implications for public policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":50560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[39],"class_list":["post-49898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 10:49:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49898"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51831,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49898\/revisions\/51831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/50560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49898"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=49898"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=49898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}