Encryption and the loss of patient data.

Fast-paced IT advances have made it increasingly possible and useful for firms to collect data on their customers on an unprecedented scale. One downside of this is that firms can experience negative publicity and financial damage if their data are breached. This is particularly the case in the medi...

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Published in:Journal of Policy Analysis & Management Vol. 30; no. 3; pp. 534 - 562
Main Authors: Miller, Amalia R., Tucker, Catherine E.
Format: Article
Published: Wiley-Blackwell Summer2011
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        atl: Encryption and the loss of patient data.
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          Miller, Amalia R.
          Tucker, Catherine E.
        affil:
          Associate Professor of Economics, University of Virginia and an economist with RAND Corporation, Arlington, VA
          Douglas Drane Career Development Professor, IT and Management and Assistant Professor of Marketing, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA
      su:
        Computer systems
        Computer fraud
        Public opinion
        Cyberterrorism
        Data encryption
        Database security
        Data security failures
        Digital preservation
        Operational risk
      sug:
        subj:
          Computer systems
          Computer fraud
          Public opinion
          Cyberterrorism
          Computer systems design and related services (except video game design and development)
          Computer Systems Design Services
          Data encryption
          Database security
          Data security failures
          Digital preservation
          Operational risk
      ab: Fast-paced IT advances have made it increasingly possible and useful for firms to collect data on their customers on an unprecedented scale. One downside of this is that firms can experience negative publicity and financial damage if their data are breached. This is particularly the case in the medical sector, where we find empirical evidence that increased digitization of patient data is associated with more data breaches. The encryption of customer data is often presented as a potential solution, because encryption acts as a disincentive for potential malicious hackers, and can minimize the risk of breached data being put to malicious use. However, encryption both requires careful data management policies to be successful and does not ward off the insider threat. Indeed, we find no empirical evidence of a decrease in publicized instances of data loss associated with the use of encryption. Instead, there are actually increases in the cases of publicized data loss due to internal fraud or loss of computer equipment. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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