Donate blood and your identity please!

Good citizens who thought they were doing good by giving blood may be feeling a pinch more painful than a needle: identity theft. Thieves stole a laptop from a St. Paul Minnesota blood clinic containing pertinent information on over 268,000 blood donors on November 28th. The information lost contained names, medical history, social security numbers, and addresses. A manager at the blood clinic Laura Kaplan stated "We believe that the data is secure.” The information was protected by several passwords, although the hospital will not say if it was encrypted or not. Police believe the crime was random, and the thieves will not attempt identity theft. Yet if I had recently donated blood in Minnesota I would be very worried. Since the clinic did not proudly state the data was definitely encrypted, I believe it most likely was not. The clinic would want everyone to know if it was. Therefore the thieves, with a little bit of tech know-how, could access the critical information. Even though, they may not want to commit identity fraud, they probably could find a buyer for the valuable data.
Because of incidents like this and others, people will stop volunteering valuable personal information even if it means not being able to give blood. As a frequent blood donor, I will be more hesitant to give blood next time if the administers are not going to take my privacy seriously. Since so many patients depend on blood daily, this will be detrimental to society. Patients will have to wait longer for necessary medical procedures, and run into more complications. It’s bad news for everyone.
To ease people’s concerns, the government should require laptops, and other storage devices containing such private information as someone’s social security number and medical history, be encrypted. Encryption is the when data is converted into code so only an intended viewer can see the actual data. Lives can be ruined when identities are stolen, so the government should do everything they can to protect people’s lives. Likewise, the medical community should not complain about the added expense and regulation because they are supposed to follow the Hippocratic oath which is a promise the medical community makes to protect privacy. Also, people will be more comfortable helping someone by donating blood. Donating blood is always painful, but the pain should not be more than a pinch.