考研英语真题|2024年英语阅读理解4:手机 App 里的健康数据得到充分保护了吗?

四季读书网 2026-11-05 11:07:50 6 0

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If you look at the apps on your phone, chances are you have at least one related to your health—and probably several. Whether it is a mental health app, a fitness tracker, a connected health device or something else, many of us are taking advantage of this technology to keep better track of our health in some shape or form. Recent research from the Organization for the Review of Care and Health Applications found that 350,000 health apps were available on the market, 90,000 of which launched in 2020 alone.

While these apps have a great deal to offer, it is not always clear how the personal information we input is collected, safeguarded and shared online. Existing health privacy law, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is primarily focused on the way hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics and insurance companies store health records online. The health information these apps and health data tracking wearables are collecting typically does not receive the same legal protections.

Without additional protections in place, companies may share (and potentially monetize) personal health information in a way consumers may not have authorized or anticipated. In 2021, Flo Health faced a Federal Trade Commission（FTC） investigation. The FTC alleged in a complaint that "despite express privacy claims, the company took control of users' sensitivity fertility data and shared it with third parties.” Flo Health and the FTC settled the matter with a Consent Order requiring the company to get app users' express affirmative consent before sharing their health information as well as to instruct the third parties to delete the data they had obtained.

Section 5 of the FTC Act empowers the FTC to initiate enforcement action against unfair or deceptive acts, meaning the FTC can only act after the fact if a company's privacy practices are misleading or cause unjustified consumer harm. While the FTC is doing what it can to ensure apps are keeping their promises to consumers around the handling of their sensitive health information, the rate at which these health apps are hitting the market demonstrates just how immense of a challenge this is.

As to the prospects for federal legislation, commentators suggest that comprehensive federal privacy legislation seems unlikely in the short term. States have begun implementing their own solutions to shore up protections for consumer-generated health data. California has been at the forefront of state privacy efforts with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. Virginia，Colorado and Utah have also recently passed state consumer data privacy legislation.

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考研英语真题|2024年英语阅读理解4:手机 App 里的健康数据得到充分保护了吗?-第2张图片-四季读书网

看看你手机里的应用，你很可能至少有一款健康类 App，甚至有好几个。不管是心理健康软件、健身追踪器、联网健康设备，还是其他类型产品，我们很多人都在借助这类技术，以各种各样的方式更好地监测自身健康。医疗健康应用评审机构的近期研究发现，市面上共有 35 万款健康 App，其中仅 2020 年新上线的就有 9 万款。

尽管这些应用能带来诸多便利，但我们并不总能清楚知晓，自己填写的个人信息是如何在网上被收集、保护和分享的。现有的健康隐私法规，例如《健康保险流通与责任法案》，主要针对医院、诊所、医生诊室以及保险公司线上存储健康档案的行为。而健康 App 和可穿戴追踪设备收集的健康信息，通常得不到同等的法律保护。

如果缺少额外的保护机制，企业可能会在用户未授权、也未曾预料的情况下，分享个人健康信息，甚至将其变现。2021 年，Flo 健康公司遭到美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）调查。联邦贸易委员会在诉状中称：“该公司虽然公开宣称会保护隐私，却掌控了用户敏感的生育数据，并将其分享给第三方。”Flo 健康公司与 FTC 达成和解协议，协议要求该公司在分享用户健康信息前，必须取得用户明确的主动同意，同时要求第三方删除已经获取的数据。

《联邦贸易委员会法》第 5 条赋予 FTC 权力，针对不公平或欺诈性行为发起执法行动。也就是说，只有当企业的隐私相关做法具有误导性、对消费者造成不合理损害之后，FTC 才能介入处理。虽然 FTC 已经尽力督促 App 厂商兑现承诺、妥善处理用户敏感健康信息，但健康 App 源源不断涌入市场的速度，足以说明这项工作面临巨大挑战。

至于联邦层面立法的前景，评论人士认为短期内很难出台统一的联邦隐私法案。各州已经开始自行出台方案，加强对用户产生的健康数据的保护。加州走在州级隐私立法的前列，于 2018 年出台《加州消费者隐私法案》。弗吉尼亚州、科罗拉多州和犹他州近期也相继通过了本州的消费者数据隐私法案。