Ethics and professional responsibility in computing; what principle is essential to protect patient privacy in a healthcare MIPC system?

• A. Maximizing speed regardless of data access.
• B. Public sharing of patient data.
• C. Ignoring access controls.
• D. Privacy and data governance.

Answer: (D)

Protecting patient privacy in a healthcare MIPC system rests on privacy and data governance. Privacy provides the rules for who can access data, for what purposes, and under what conditions, along with practices like data minimization and appropriate disclosures. Data governance gives the organizational framework—clear roles and responsibilities, data classification, access control, authentication, authorization, auditing, retention, and regulatory compliance—to ensure those rules are followed across the data lifecycle. Together, they create ethical and practical safeguards that keep sensitive information accessible only to authorized people and used appropriately, with accountability. Choosing speed at the expense of privacy or advocating public sharing or ignoring access controls would undermine these safeguards and violate patient trust and legal obligations.