Health data privacy and relative concern about law enforcement access

Objective Health-related data, including medical and genetic information, are sometimes used in criminal investigations, raising concerns about infringements of personal privacy. Understanding public attitudes toward law enforcement access to personal data is essential for shaping policies that protect health data privacy. We assessed public concern about law enforcement access to health-related data relative to other data types and examined variation by age. Methods We conducted a survey with an embedded choice experiment among adults from a U.S. probability-based panel. The experiment compared relative concern about law enforcement access to the following information from non-suspects in criminal investigations: medical records, DNA sample/test results, family tree information, email messages, text messages, social media, and location history. Relative concern was estimated using logistic regression with probability-rescaled coefficients. Concerns were compared across three age cohorts: 18-39 years, 40-59 years, and 60+ years. Results Respondents (n=977) expressed concern with law enforcement access to all data types, with health-related information among the most sensitive. DNA was the most concerning (23% of total concern). Medical records (18%) ranked among the top three, exceeding emails (15%), location history (13%), social media (6%), and family tree information (6%), though slightly below text messages (19%). Concerns varied with age: compared to the youngest cohort, the oldest cohort was more concerned with law enforcement access to medical records (p<0.01) , and the middle-aged cohort was more concerned with DNA (p=0.02) Conclusion Public concern about law enforcement access to health-related data about non-suspects exceeds concern for most other data types. By empirically quantifying differences in concern using a rigorous choice experiment, this study contributes evidence, which can inform ongoing policy discussions about the secondary use of medical and genetic information in law enforcement, while helping to contextualize concerns about investigative use of family relatedness information.