COVID-19 and Healthcare Data Privacy

Healthcare is certainly at its limits right now due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in more ways than you may think. Atlas VPN reports that an estimated 83% of healthcare providers in the United States are actually running on outdated software, meaning they're a lot more vulnerable to cyber attacks and malware. In fact, Palo Alto Networks reports that 56% of surveyed healthcare providers still use software that runs on the Windows 7 operating system, which Microsoft no longer offers customer support for, leaving them further at risk of attack.

However, concerns for healthcare data privacy is becoming more prevalent due to COVID-19 in multiple ways. For example, Congress has begun pushing for more healthcare data privacy amidst reports of the White House assembling technology and healthcare companies to develop a COVID-19 surveillance system. Subsequently, there is now a push from Congress to ensure more privacy when it comes to collecting and sharing healthcare data, including the data collected under the COVID-19 surveillance system. Globally, Europe also faces similar problems with emergency healthcare applications being used to track the COVID-19 virus and Petra Wilson, European Program Director of the Personal Connected Health Alliance, believes the COVID-19 pandemic pointed out flaws in their current usage and sharing of healthcare data and post-virus there will be a bigger emphasis on using health data for the public good and retaining security and privacy for peoples' personal data.