eHealth poses risks, says Kemri

By GATONYE GATHURA

Your private medical information may not be safe anymore with the increasing use of eHealth programmes, a top research institution has warned.

Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) now wants Government to introduce safeguards that will guarantee privacy. The requirement that all SIM cards be registered for the identification of phone users, Kemri says poses new challenges with regard to maintaining anonymity of research subjects.

The law allows the police to track down SMSes, identify senders and subject matter. In the same way, they can intercept health messages between a patient and the doctor or a research participant and researchers.

An example is a reminder from your doctor on when next you need to pick your antiretrovirals. If such falls into the wrong hands, it could go viral on the Internet.

 “The use of mobile phones or other electronic media is on the rise in the medical field. But without stricter Government regulations and vigilance, the current digital age is likely to create headlines regarding cases of possible breach of privacy,” says Dr Solomon Mpoke, Kemri director.

He says they will engage with the Government, service providers and the Communication Commission of Kenya to “ensure beneficial, safe and responsible integration of technology in medical research involving human participants”.

Writing in an in-house publication called Bioethics Review, Dr Thomas Odeny says the SIM card registration law is making it difficult for researchers to assure study participants of complete privacy.

“The Government should consider enacting legislation that would not only enable law enforcement agencies to access mobile phone information to fight crime, but also limit the ability of these agencies to access or share personal health information,” says Odeny, a researcher at Kemri.

Share phones

To reduce the danger of such messages falling into the wrong hands, Odeny tells of one project in Nyanza where SMSes are used to encourage HIV positive women to attend maternal clinics. He says potential clients who share phones with them are not enrolled if they have not disclosed their HIV status to their partners.

In another programme in Thika, researchers required participants to send a secret password before receiving sensitive questions about their sexual activity.

The researchers are also worried over the safety of a patients’ or study participants’ information stored in mobile phones by the health workers or researchers. “Phones used to store or send personal health information should be password-protected, securely stored and accessed only by authorised personnel,” says Odeny.


 

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eHealth Kemri