Hackers hijack and publish mental health data of hundreds of people
This is a classic &quot;Damoclean sword&quot; conundrum.<p>The ability to digitize and aggregate the data, and maybe even subject it to some kinds of AI, might result in <i>massive</i> improvement in therapy.<p>Mental health treatment has come an <i>incredibly</i> long way, just in the last couple of decades. It&#x27;s even more amazing, when you look at how it went a hundred years ago. Some of the reasons are because of the ability to study treatment methodologies and outcomes.<p>But having the data in a place that can happen, is very, <i>very</i> risky.<p>People with mental health problems tend to be treated as &quot;disposable people&quot; by a lot of folks. I guarantee that the first thing the hackers did, was find a way to &quot;dehumanize&quot; the people in their data. Having the people as &quot;data&quot; went a long way towards that.<p>But <i>people will die</i> as a <i>direct</i> result of this breach. That&#x27;s not hyperbole. It will happen. Some people will commit suicide, some will avoid treatment, causing all kinds of collateral damage, and some may actually kill other people, because of this.<p>I have a <i>lot</i> of close, personal experience with people suffering from mental health issues, and this is about as bad a nightmare as you can imagine.<p>It will reverberate around the world.