Privacy concerns

Anyone who believes their most personal information remains private in the custody of others obviously hasn't seen "The Breakfast Club."

In the 1985 film, Shermer High School Principal Dick Vernon, stuck on campus to oversee Saturday detention for five teens, kills time by snooping through confidential student records stored in the basement.

"Mister ... Ooh, Mister Tearney," the disrespectful principal, played by the late Paul Gleason, mutters to himself. "A history of slight mental illness? Wooh, no wonder he's so (expletive) up."

What made the scene especially memorable was not the insensitive disclosure of some poor lad's sickness. It was writer/director John Hughes' temerity in pointing out that within every business and bureaucracy, there are workers who are so unhappy, uncommitted -- or simply bored -- that learning the secrets of others gives them a sense of importance.

And it happens everywhere, all the time.

Recent news that employees of the UCLA Medical Center were nosing through the files of high-profile patients have the privacy police particularly outraged. Not just over the breaches of personal information, but because such peeping is now illegal under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

The federal medical privacy law, enacted in 1996 and enforced since 2003, was supposed to add an extra layer of protection against the Principal Vernons of the world. By giving the federal Department of Health and Human Services the authority to punish violators with civil fines, and establishing criminal penalties, Congress assured the public that health care providers would take extra precautions to protect confidential patient records.

Of course, the snoopers kept snooping. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that the federal government has received about 34,000 complaints of HIPAA violations in the past five years. But only a few cases have been prosecuted.

In the wake of the UCLA scandal, some now want to increase punishments for violating institutions, provide penalties for individual snoopers and force providers to obtain explicit instructions from patients and their families on exactly who can have access to their records.

As if this burdensome law hasn't piled enough new costs on the health care industry -- and patients -- already.

No amount of regulatory rigmarole will stop some people from being nosy. Those who use their snooping to commit fraud and identity theft can be prosecuted under those criminal statutes.

HIPAA's privacy provisions serve no real purpose other than to score points for politicians and make voters feel better about the glut of personal information available in dozens of computer networks, manila folders and Web sites. Millions of Americans think nothing of posting their photos and thoughts on a MySpace.com page, using credit cards that allow businesses to track their spending habits, and carrying a cell phone that keeps track of their exact location. But the prospect of a nameless health insurance clerk 900 miles away chuckling over the fact that they take Viagra? The horror!

HIPAA is already a bureaucratic nightmare. There's no need to expand the law's privacy penalties.