Indian Governement to introduce Health ID for Citizens.

[Yatharth Shah]

Summary

 The Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi in his address to the nation on it's 74th Independence day mentioned the "National Digital Health Mission, due to which every citizen will get  a Health ID, which will store all the medical data of the citizen.

 

My thoughts

The Initiative is very good, as it eliminates the chances of health Insurance fraud, and helps keep the medical information of the people in a digitized form and in the government's servers, thus enabling retrieval in case of a disaster and in remote locations, however with every form of Technology, it is susceptible to hacking and Cyber Crime, which raises concern in many people's mind.

 

Quotes:

 

Independence Day Speech: National Digital Health Mission is "completely technology-based" initiative that will revolutionise the health sector, the PM said.

 

Announcing the National Digital Health Mission, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that a unique health ID will be provided to every citizen which will have their details of diseases, diagnostics, report, medication and so on.

 

Health ID will not be mandatory, as reported by The Print, but the government hopes it will attract more citizens to track health records – digitally – right from birth over the coming years. You don’t need to create files and keep track of older prescriptions. Instead, you can simply click a picture of your reports and add them to Health ID to make digital copies of everything accessible in a jiffy.

 

The National Health Authority (NHA) has been tasked with the design, roll-out, and the implementation of this mission. This project is currently being piloted in India’s 6 union territories – namely Ladakh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshadweep.

 

Sources

 Press Infromation Bureau India's Twitter post on the subject.

 

ANI News post

 

NDTV's coverage of the News

 

The Print's coverage of the news

 

Edited August 17, 2020 by Yatharth Shah
Added the link for the coverage in media, updated the article to add more info

[Vector0102]

32 minutes ago, Yatharth Shah said:

snip

 

Why cant they link this to the already existing Aadhar? It'll be more convenient that way.

[Drama Lama]

Big brother is always watching your weight

[Teddy07]

2 hours ago, Drama Lama said:

Big brother is always watching your weight

Wouldn´t be too bad for some people

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved (back) to Tech News

[justpoet]

Moving all that data to ONLY the govt makes it far FAR easier for the govt to target dissidents, even in ways that most wouldn't be able to tell were targeting.

[RejZoR]

8 hours ago, Drama Lama said:

Big brother is always watching your weight

Health ID, now sponsored by McDonalds.

[Guest]

I’m always curious for the logistics to do stuff like this in India.

[eeeee1]

another thing for scammers to steal, huh. other than that, very important step. congrats those living in india.

[Donut417]

7 minutes ago, eeeee1 said:

another thing for scammers to steal, huh. other than that, very important step. congrats those living in india.

How is it any different than a private corporation having the data? Private corporations get hacked all the time. 

[eeeee1]

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

How is it any different than a private corporation having the data? Private corporations get hacked all the time. 

I am not following. Do you mean there is no difference between a scammer, phisher or hacker having any identifying information about your ID and a private business?  Sure they get hacked all the time and attacks are happening right now but it should be in the best interest for both person and corporation to keep this data private, least it keeps away future potential customers worrying about their safety. 

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, eeeee1 said:

I am not following. Do you mean there is no difference between a scammer, phisher or hacker having any identifying information about your ID and a private business?  Sure they get hacked all the time and attacks are happening right now but it should be in the best interest for both person and corporation to keep this data private, least it keeps away future potential customers worrying about their safety. 

Im saying the data is no safer in a private businesses hands than the governments. Not sure how it works in India but I can tell you most doctors in the US belong to some kinda of health care group. Those corporations store your health data. While Medical Records are protected under Federal Law it doesn't stop people from hacking the database. At least if the government gets hacked the government has teeth. They can hunt these guys down and deal with them. All a corporation does is tell their customers "OH we got hacked, we will pay for ID monitoring for a year". 

[divito]

Of course there are risks with centralized data, but given it's already stored by potentially multiple parties already (doctors, clinics, pharmacies, insurance), it's not outlandish, and depending on implementation, might work better overall. Ultimately, some of the problems with healthcare is just like other industries, and that comes down to bureaucracy and fragmentation.

Personally, as someone who likes to think ahead and as a proponent of consolidation, I'd prefer if things were done from the start a la SSN/SIN. As it stands, I'd rather a master log being kept vs. the current situation of profiles in multiple formats and with multiple parties, etc...

[mr moose]

We have this in Australia, It is voluntary and you can pick and choose who has access to it.  It is a very good idea because it means you no longer have to request your records be moved from practice to practice if you want to see a different doctor.  It also means if you end up in a hospital unable to communicate they instantly have access to your pertinent information.

[CarlBar]

Agree with several people here that this is overall a good thing, provided the implementation doesn't end up an utter mess.

 

As an aside whilst it's definitely tech news and definitely worth reporting, in terms of *Surprised Pikachu Face* or *Insert Hand Rubbing here" factor it's up there with "Breaking News: Scientists Confirm Water Is |Indeed Wet". Useful and important but not exactly earth shattering.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

We have this in Australia, It is voluntary and you can pick and choose who has access to it.  It is a very good idea because it means you no longer have to request your records be moved from practice to practice if you want to see a different doctor.  It also means if you end up in a hospital unable to communicate they instantly have access to your pertinent information.

In a way that's kinda how it works in the US. With the exception you can add people to the allowed list such as family. This way if something ever happens your selected people could talk to your doctor because they are on your HIPA, the doctor would be able to give them medical history and all that jazz. 

[mr moose]

30 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

In a way that's kinda how it works in the US. With the exception you can add people to the allowed list such as family. This way if something ever happens your selected people could talk to your doctor because they are on your HIPA, the doctor would be able to give them medical history and all that jazz. 

I like that, it's like a way to give power of attorney when you are unconscious without family have to find documents, very good in life threatening situation and decisions have to be made quickly.

[Donut417]

Just now, mr moose said:

I like that, it's like a way to give power of attorney when you are unconscious without family have to find documents, very good in life threatening situation and decisions have to be made quickly.

Other than if you use multiple doctors you might have to make sure you HIPA is updated at all the offices. 

[Bombastinator]

Citizen identification systems have control as well as privacy issues generally.  I don’t know much about how India works.  I do understand they have a public health care system.

 

A thing I was told once about Indian health care. Anecdotal.  Could be crap:

Spoiler

I was told the public health care system in India has or at one time had serious corruption problems because it was overworked and a person could jump the line by offering a “tip” to a doctor which resulted in people who couldn’t afford the “tip” fee often waiting indefinitely for care.  I don’t know how true that is.

 

[Donut417]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

Citizen identification systems have control as well as privacy issues generally.

Which is why this would never fly in the US. There was a proposed National ID card. People were outraged even though this card system could solve all the fraud in SSN cards. Funny enough the SSN is kinda our national ID system. Even though it was not supposed to be used in that way. 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

Which is why this would never fly in the US. There was a proposed National ID card. People were outraged even though this card system could solve all the fraud in SSN cards. Funny enough the SSN is kinda our national ID system. Even though it was not supposed to be used in that way. 

people are funny in arguing against national ID, we had a similar issue in the 80's, people complained about the idea of a national ID being a socialist dictatorial thing.  But we all have tax file numbers, CRN (customer reference number for social security), drivers license numbers and business have ABN.  None of those change, once you have one to is for life whether you use it or not. 

[Bombastinator]

The issue as I understand it is who has access to the data and what can it be used for.  Big data has amazing abilities regarding thought control for a populace.

[Donut417]

7 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

The issue as I understand it is who has access to the data and what can it be used for.  Big data has amazing abilities regarding thought control for a populace.

Which is why we need to watch what corporations do with that data. I my self would not be upset if the government went to a National ID system and had data on me. Because frankly with Facebook, Twitter and such they already have most of that data on people regardless. 

 

The biggie for me is how to protect the very sensitive data. I mean a company like Equifax leaked data about half the population in the US. That cant happen. What ever system a government uses it needs to have multiple factors of authentication. The most sensitive data, our Identity, Health information and such needs to be protected at all cost. 

[Yatharth Shah]

4 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Which is why we need to watch what corporations do with that data. I my self would not be upset if the government went to a National ID system and had data on me. Because frankly with Facebook, Twitter and such they already have most of that data on people regardless. 

 

The biggie for me is how to protect the very sensitive data. I mean a company like Equifax leaked data about half the population in the US. That cant happen. What ever system a government uses it needs to have multiple factors of authentication. The most sensitive data, our Identity, Health information and such needs to be protected at all cost. 

That is a good point, but in India, we have Digilocker, which is an online service provided by the government, where each citizen with an Aadhar id (12 Digit Unique ID with biometric and demographic data) is given 1GB to store Legacy Documents and Issue Govt and related institutions documents within the service, it has 2FA whenever we sign in and the app also has pin protection, it also has 256 Bit SSL Encryption with Security audit, so that maybe the framework they could build it on. Again, I am a citizen and do not know the actual implementation details of the upcoming program.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, DanOstin said:

It is not a joke, really the world is changing to the real task of big brother is to keep everyone under control like puppets.

“Big brother” specifically was a fictional character in a pre world war 2 science fiction novel.

 

The concept of a world wide “big brother” type entity is wildly unlikely.  That there are independent forces in multiple locations acting in  a similar way is much more possible. Coincidence is not causality.