Mr. President, I wish to speak for a few minutes on the subject of technology. My message is simple: Technology is moving fast, and our laws cannot be left behind. Every day more and more Americans are waking up to what technology can do to improve their lives. Thanks to the hard work of the American people in the technology sector, we live in an amazing time. Congress didn't bring about this revolution, and we must be sure not to stop it.
However, one of the main threats to the growth of electronic commerce is the risk of a massive erosion of privacy. While the Internet offers tremendous benefits, it also comes with the potential for harm. If we lack confidence that our privacy will be protected on-line, we won't take full advantage of what the Internet has to offer. The Judiciary Committee is now considering a bill to protect the privacy of Internet users, and I want to focus on one particular issue: maintaining privacy of health information obtained by web sites.
I am pleased to join my colleague from New Jersey, Sen. Torricelli, in co-sponsoring an amendment on this issue in the Judiciary Committee. The amendment we plan to sponsor will give citizens a chance to decide if health information they provide while surfing the web will be passed on to others.
This amendment simply provides that a commercial web site operator must obtain permission from a person before sending health information to another entity. In addition, it would require that individuals be told to whom their medical information will be released. It's only fair to put that burden on the web site operator, not the consumer. Medical information can be highly personal, and consumers face serious risk if it becomes a public commodity that can be bought or sold without the individual's consent. If that's allowed, then we are all at risk.
I know that the Department of Health and Human Services will finalize medical privacy rules this summer. I understand that, for the most part, those rules set up the same kind of "opt-in" approach that our amendment will take. I see the need to allow that process to finish, so the current draft of our amendment explicitly does not interfere with those rules, and does not apply to entities subject to them, such as health plans and providers. What we're getting at are those commercial health websites to which the protections in the HHS rules will not apply.
But if it turns out that the final HHS rules are inadequate, then having this amendment in the bill as a placeholder will provide us with a vehicle to strengthen them legislatively if necessary. There should be ample time for that, because realistically, we all know that more work will have to be done on the Internet privacy bill before final enactment.
We are open to ideas on how to improve the amendment, but let me make clear that I am adamant on the point that people should have the basic right to control their medical information. Period. I suspect that there are special interests out there who don't think so, but I think they're wrong, and I look forward to having the issue aired fully in the Committee.
We should protect our citizens' most confidential information from those who would misuse it. We should also arm them to make a thoughtful, informed decision on how their health information will be used. Once we've done that, the American people can be assured that they can go on-line without having to surrender their privacy rights.