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October 24, 2019 02:40 pm

You Got a Brain Scan at the Hospital. Someday a Computer May Use It To Identify You.

Thousands of people have received brain scans, as well as cognitive and genetic tests, while participating in research studies. Though the data may be widely distributed among scientists, most participants assume their privacy is protected because researchers remove their names and other identifying information from their records. But could a curious family member identify one of them just from a brain scan? Could a company mining medical records to sell targeted ads do so, or someone who wants to embarrass a study participant? The New York Times: The answer is yes, investigators at the Mayo Clinic reported on Wednesday. A magnetic resonance imaging scan includes the entire head, including the subject's face. And while the countenance is blurry, imaging technology has advanced to the point that the face can be reconstructed from the scan. Under some circumstances, that face can be matched to an individual with facial recognition software. In a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the Mayo Clinic showed that the required steps are not complex. But privacy experts questioned whether the process could be replicated on a much larger scale with today's technology. The subjects were 84 healthy participants in a long-term study of about 2,000 residents of Olmsted County, Minn. Participants get brain scans to look for signs of Alzheimer's disease, as well as cognitive, blood and genetic tests. Over the years, the study has accumulated over 6,000 M.R.I. scans.

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