Hacker News Reader

Comment by cperciva | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, doctors need training about what they should or should not ask parents for. When my daughter was a month old her GP asked me to take photos of her diaper rash and email them in. "Uh no, not going to do that."

View on HN

Is the concern the doctor, or someone in their office misusing the pictures? Or is it the fear of having such an image on your phone or sent over the internet at all? Or is the concern that the very concept of such an image being recorded is morally wrong? Or is it something else?

I think the most reasonable concern would be having the image sent over the internet. I wouldn't be afraid of anybody in their office misusing the picture because they're trained and it's just another day in the office for them. Body parts are body parts, it shouldn't be morally wrong because of where the photo is, I think that's problematic thinking in my opinion.

Real question, why not? It seems like a reasonable request barring needing to go into the office. My comms and images with our pediatricians are through their app (not email), which they constantly remind us is under strict HIPAA compliance.

Because it's not worth losing your Gmail account or having to explain to everyone you meet that no, you're not a pedophile, and you weren't "caught with CSAM," it was just an over-zealous prosecutor responding to an automated report and a misunderstanding about some photos the doctor requested, and anyway that case was thrown out...

No, we should instead stop sexualing children. And we should ban this kind of mass surveillance.

What's the problem with that? If you mean the channel, unencrypted email, then maybe I agree to some extent. If you mean taking pictures of children for the purpose of diagnosis I really don't follow.

Your phone and your email provider are both going to ban you if you do this.

They should be able to ask for that in a secure manner with security and retention controls and guardrails for how that data is accessed. In other words, email is not ideal.

Or, if your time and money allows it, deny that option and take your kid into the doctor in person.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com