In the latest skirmish over making public information available on the
Net, a doctors' union has sued a California regulatory agency over its
practice of listing physicians' addresses online.
The suit, filed by the Union of American Physicians and Dentists,
challenges the Medical Board of
California over its practice of listing licensed physicians' "address
of record" on its Web site. The medical board oversees the state's 104,000
medical practitioners.
Since May, the agency has posted contact information for state doctors on a
national online
database. But after receiving complaints, it agreed to stop listing
street addresses, at least temporarily.
A spokeswoman said the agency is required by law to make doctors' addresses
available to the public, and may resume doing so via the Internet.
She added that the same information is available by calling the medical
board's hot line.
But Gary Robinson, executive director of the doctors' union, disputed the
agency's claims. "We believe that the law does not require them to give out
this information, and in some cases precludes them from giving it," he said.
He added that even if the law does require doctors' addresses to be public,
providing them over the Internet poses risks that make the practice reckless.
"Because of the technology with the Internet, you can download things and
use the information to invade the privacy of doctors," he said. "There are
far more possibilities of abuses than with the old system."
The suit, filed yesterday in San Francisco Superior Court, is the latest
example of people objecting to public information being made available on
the Net.
A recent California law mandating that campaign contributions be posted on
the Internet had to be amended to remove donors' addresses after opponents
said the information would threaten individuals' privacy. Under California
law, the addresses of most donors must be made available to the public at
the Secretary of State's office. Courts
in a number of states, including California, are also toying with the idea
of posting court documents online.
Privacy advocates argue that making public information available digitally
allows private companies to cull records from different sources and cross-reference them, providing a dossier of an individual's private
information such as medical history, employer, and finances.
"One of the issues raised by this lawsuit is what is the [medical] board's
responsibility vis-a-vis the Net?" said Candis Cohen, a spokeswoman for the
agency. "Is there a difference between being able to get [information over
the phone] and being able to pull it up on the Net?"
Robinson, of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, said that many
doctors, such as those who work at prisons, have no choice but to list
their residential information as their address of record.
"As far as doctors giving out their home addresses," Robinson said, "we
feel the public's right to know is pretty small."