Last week, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation sent a joint letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt urging the search engine company to disclose the technique its new Google Flu Trends tool uses to protect the privacy of search queries, Modern Healthcare reports (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 11/17).
Google Flu Trends aims to help public health officials better track the spread of influenza. The tool records the number of searches for terms related to flu, such as "thermometer" and "cold remedies," operating under the assumption that an influx of searches for such terms in a certain region might indicate a flu outbreak (iHealthBeat, 11/12).
In a posting on its Web site, the Electronic Privacy Information Center said, "Although Google has said that it will only reveal aggregate data, there are no clear legal or technological safeguards that prevent the disclosure of individual search histories. Without such privacy safeguards, Google Flu Trends could be used to re-identify users who search for medical information" (Modern Healthcare, 11/17).
The groups' letter is available online (.pdf).