Health privacy, racialization, and the causal potential of legal regulations

Abstract

Our commentary addresses three issues. First, we point out an additional problematic dimension of excessive health privacy loss, namely, the potential racialization of groups and individuals that it may likely contribute to. Second, we note that, in our view, the authors’ argument for more regulation rests on an invidious comparison between the realistically described status quo and the idealized picture of the imagined regulatory regime that the authors briefly propose. Third, we argue that, despite existing regulations, both private and government actors frequently use private data in ways that lead to ethically problematic outcomes, especially when it comes to racialized communities.