Mobile devices are collecting and disseminating a wealth of data about our health—from smartphone-based glucose monitors to Wi-Fi–enabled pacemakers. These innovations allow patients, doctors, and the business world to identify, manage, and research ailments in an unprecedented way. At the same time, the accumulation of this information by corporations and health care providers raises questions about whom our data belongs to, and who is responsible for keeping it safe. Haphazard privacy regulations and inadequate security measures are already putting this highly sensitive data at risk of being leaked or hacked. As health care goes digital, how much access should we have to the information we’re generating, and what can we do to keep it from unfriendly eyes?

We’ll discuss these questions and more on Thursday, March 26, at noon. This Future Tense event will be held at the New America office in Washington, D.C. RSVP here.

Agenda

Noon: Whose Data Is It Anyway?

Sara M. Watson
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University

Deborah Estrin
Professor, computer science, Cornell Tech, and co-founder, Open mHealth

Joel Selanikio
CEO & co-founder, Magpi, and assistant professor, Department of Pediatrics, Georgetown University

Moderator: Sherwin Siy
Vice President of Legal Affairs, Public Knowledge

12:50 p.m.: Hacking Demo

Kevin Fu
Director, Archimedes Research Center for Medical Device Security, University of Michigan

1:10 p.m.: Will Health Tech Ever Be Hack-Proof?

Kevin Fu
Director, Archimedes Research Center for Medical Device Security, University of Michigan

Lucia Savage
Chief privacy officer, National Coordinator for Health IT

Alvaro Bedoya
Executive director, Center on Privacy and Technology, Georgetown

Moderator: Peter Singer
Strategist and senior fellow, New America