A hacker wants to steal your personal information. Oh, and your health insurance company wants to reduce their costs. These two pieces of information are far more closely tied together than you might realize. First, identity theft is a massive business. Also, if your insurance company can get you to visit a doctor online, you both save money. The only problem is, will these two paths meet to create the possibility of massive medical identity theft?
One man who might have very good insight into this question is Paul Syverson, the self-proclaimed inventor of the dark web. In a recent interview with the Huffington Post, Syverson said, “Medical identity theft is poised to take over as the primary form of identity theft.”
Medical identity theft and the need for anonymity
According to Syverson, a private health care company is developing a site on the dark web to enable its clients to handle transactions anonymously. The dark web? Why on earth would a company go there? The dark web has historically been viewed by most people as a hangout for thieves, drug dealers, and those with something to hide. Edward Snowden used it extensively because what the dark web does is make someone anonymous on the web. But, there’s a very good reason for the rest of us to pay attention to the Tor browser and the dark web.
Let’s face it, Google makes tons of money just because they know your browsing history. They can target ads to you, which increases the value to their advertisers. Just as Google uses your browsing history to increase revenues, hackers would like to know more about you, and this is why they’d like your medical history. If you’d like to learn more about online privacy, you can dive deep into the subject with this online privacy analysis from BestVPN.org.
Tele-health options — the horizon is here
For years we’ve been hearing how we will eventually be able to never make another visit to a doctor’s office. Well, my insurance company recently sent me a promotional piece about how I can visit a doctor online. Save time. Save money. Yada, yada.
With insurance companies showing increasing interest in these tele-health options, the dark web and encryption will become more mainstream. I’m not quite ready to trust my insurance company’s tele-health options. I don’t know enough about their security and the steps they’ll take to secure my privacy. What I’m sure of, though, is the hackers are paying attention because our medical histories offer them huge rewards with medical identity theft.
Wow, I’ve never put too much thought into identity theft via medical records. Do you think it’s worth investing in one of those protection services (such as Lifelock) or are those a waste of money?
As it is now, it’s easy for your identity to be stolen by anyone working in a med type office. You are told not to give out your SS number for your protection but they always tell you in the offices they will have problems getting payment etc without it, so you have to give it. Then of course there’s the fact that they use your SS number as your Medicare number too. Do we make it easy for the crooks or what ?
That about sums it up, Jane. Sad, but true.
Another very interesting – and scary – post, Terry. I wouldn’t mind if they stole my health problems, just not my health identity.
I know, Sally. It’s quite an eye-opener.