Here is a fabulous ACLU movie on ordering a pizza in 2010 and the inherent violations of privacy that will be involved. The’ve got the date for the all the medical data far too early though (most stuff will still be on paper then), and actually most of that data use is banned already–unless it’s really for medical uses. Plus there will not be a national healh plan by 2010, even if most lefty ACLU supporters (like me) would favor that! The risk is far greater that employers and their private health plan agents will be "suggesting" that their employees agree to these restrictions (in fact last week one employer added an extra charge for smokers to their health premium)
But you can see where we’re headed without some real safeguards built in, which is why the Health Privacy Project gang are doing such good work. (Even if I diss them from time to time).
Having the wonderful experience of a big corporation trying to frame me, with the fallout scattered everywhere, I could get behind the Internet flushing outdated material and having people actively renew their web sites. Perhaps a lot of good “ghost” sites would be lost in the process, but I could deal with losing the Complete Nitpickers Guide to The Prisoner if I could be assured that Kaiser’s accusations that I stole patient data as an employee would eventually disappear. And really it makes no sense that corporations can place a social and financial burden on me for taking what amounts to a photograph of a public web site while I can’t do a damned thing about being called a patient data thief and losing the assistance of government agencies (supposedly *for* the people) because I was aligned on the wrong side of a political issue by a corporate PR department.