Privacy technology lessons from healthcare

The probability that information will be abused depends both on its value and on the number of people, who have access. The modern trend to ever larger databases increases both of these risk factors at the same time. Compartmented security policies can solve many of the technical issues, and there are applications such as healthcare where they have been developed in some detail. But the big problem isn't technical; it is legal and regulatory. Insurers, employers and governments won't adopt compartmented systems, or will allow them to be adopted only in places such as hospitals which are not where the real threats lie.