Second, consumers are frustrated by the lack of control they have over the use of their personal information. I consider such topics as workplace monitoring and medical records privacy as far more serious than junk mail. I see this as a symbolic issue. Most people like certain kinds of junk mail, perhaps their catalogs. But what they hate is the lack of control they have over what enters their mail box each day.
Most consumers think there are far more privacy laws and regulations than actually exist.
And some are the result of inadequate security in the handling of personal information. Let me give you some examples of the kinds of medical privacy-related stories we have heard from people who call the hotline. She is a psychiatrist in private practice. When she ordered a copy of her medical record from the insurance company's centralized database, the Medical Information Bureau, she found out that she had been coded incorrectly as having both Alzheimer's disease and a heart condition. Martin once off-handedly remarked to his doctor that he had occasionally smoked pot twenty years ago.