Stop the RI Dept of Health from tracking your data without your knowledge or consent. This petition is to oppose the RI state bills of H5541 & S676. These bills allow for a tracking database to be implemented for all RI residents of all ages. This database will be accessed by doctors, school nurses, and any other third party that the RIDOH gives permission to. We are working to protect your rights, to protect your personal data, and most importantly your medical privacy.
Please read and SIGN TODAY
Attention RI state legislators and Governor;
I do not consent to my medical data of any kind, being stored in a database tracking system without my expressed written consent. What choices I make with my doctor, whether that be vaccinations, preventative therapy, or anything else, is private and personal information and only I make the choice of who has access to that data.
Bills H5541 & S676 have language that allows for many different fields of data to be tracked, but also directly connect the law to CDC nationally endorsed data elements. This allows for any change of data collection to happen without anyone's notification. By connecting the law to that element, permits the DOH to add more when the CDC approves more. I do not appreciate nor do I approve of unknowing amounts of data collection into a central database. As we all know nothing is 100% secure, at some point any form of a database has the potential to have a data breach. Especially when Dept of Health agencies are exempt from HIPAA regulations. I find it appalling that the legislator would consider a bill that gives such an over reach of power to the Dept of Health without my explicit consent.
The Dept of Health has stated that a big reason for developing such a database is to assist the elderly population with keeping track of which vaccines they have received and when. The pharmacies and doctors are sometimes creating a circumstance that a person would get vaccinated twice for the same vaccine, by not properly informing each other of what the patient record has. This outlines a serious problem with the current system. The current communication system between pharmacists and doctors needs to be worked out and evaluated. Such a situation should not fall on all RI residents to be auto enrolled into a database and need to take extra steps to opt themselves out of it.
These bills would expand the current KidsNet database to all persons beyond age 18. KidsNet does not give the parent the ability to access or view their child's data. They must request time at their doctor's office and sit with an associate to view data that has been input and stored about their child. How is this acceptable means of accessing our own information? The "opt out" status of the current database is not an opt out at all. It solely blocks the file from third party sign in, and makes it so only DOH can view the data. The RIDOH does not allow a parent to completely remove their child's data at all.
The current bill states that "a person may opt out by contacting the Dept of Health". Without language that states the file will be removed and deleted, this simply implies it will be worked the same way the current database does, and that is not acceptable practice of patient records.
I strongly urge you to OPPOSE these bills and support the rights and privacy of the residents of Rhode Island.
Petition organized by HCRI & NOHPVmandateRI