I can see your point, but almost all clinical research already involves a consent process where the patient is told the benefits and risks of participating; signing away a license to a subset of their medical data could simply be included in the consent.<p>There are some regrettable examples of cells and tissue being taken from patient specimens without their knowledge, some of which give birth to entire fields of research, and then it is later unclear whether data that <i>could</i> re-identify the patient&#x27;s family (like genomic data) can be published [1]. It can be really hard to fully de-identify imaging and molecular data.<p>[1]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;deal-done-over-hela-cell-line-1.13511" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;deal-done-over-hela-cell-line-1.1...</a>