Can anything remain private once you put it online?

So I love Google. I love all the applications that Google comes out with such as Google Docs, Google Talk, Google Calender andI live my life by my gmail account,  it's the only email address which I regularly check. However, I am not comfortable with the idea of Google Health. Honestly I'm not particularly comfortable with any of my health information being put online. However, as uncomfortable as I am with the idea of Google Health I did except the Terms so that I could see what it entailed. The idea is great. Online health records make so much sense to have, especially for any person with a chronic health issue.

Google Health offers a collective way to view your medical records, set personal health goals, manage prescriptions, immunizations, and insurance. It all looks so good to me, and google even states that “Google uses sophisticated security techniques to help keep your information secure and private, and you always control how it's used. We will never sell your data. You are in control. You choose what you want to share and what you want to keep private“. And yeah somehow I cannot stomach the idea of putting information this personal online, even if it is under the lock of a password, because I have had my email account broken into before, and as this is a by-product of that email account my faith refuses to hold strong. With information such as how many abortions a woman has had, what STIs someone has, I just wouldn't feel safe. Hopefully I'm just unduly fearful, because I can see all health records being on some type of online system in the very near future.  

But, adding to my apprehensions about google Health are the fact that they are not represented as covered entities under HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability) Act of 1996, which lead to the establishment of certain national requirements in regards to a persons health information. With this said, when you agree to use Google Health you are also agreeing to allow Google to distribute your information to other Google services in addition to Google Health.  I can't really stomach anything that distributes my information to other services even if they are under the dame provider.  But then again, I also don't really believe that most of the things that we put online are actually private... Someone can always see what we do to some degree and I don't particularly think that this is any different.  


But maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist.  Do you trust services which list your personal health information online?  


photograph from: http://cybernetnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/google-health-2.jpg