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Health checks by smartphone raise privacy fears

– Cloud-based healthcare –

Other users are entering personal health data into applications on their smartphones.

This kind of “e-health” could save governments money and improve life expectancy, but authorities and companies are looking to strengthen security measures to protect patients’ data before such services become even more widespread.

“I think tech companies are becoming more concerned with privacy and encryption now,” said Curran.

“The problem quite often is that a lot of this data is stored not on the phone or the app but in the cloud,” in virtual storage space provided by web companies, he added.

“We are at the mercy of who the app providers are and how well they secure the information, and they are at the mercy sometimes of the cloud providers.”

Others fear that insurance companies will get hold of customers’ health information and could make them pay more for coverage according to their illnesses.

Various sources alleged to AFP that health insurance companies have been buying data from supermarkets about what food customers were buying, drawn from the sales records of their loyalty cards, following media reports to that effect.

The kind of “e-health” indicator most sought after by patients is fitness-related rather than information on illnesses, however, said Vincent Bonneau of the research group Idate.

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A study by Citrix Mobile, a specialist in wireless security, showed that more than three quarters of people using e-health applications were doing so for fitness reasons rather than for diagnosing illnesses.

“No one really wants to have a hospital in their home,” said Bonneau.

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