S1, EP 2: Stephanie Hanaway discusses the AAFP's data privacy contract with its members, and the damage done by big tech companies and bad actors

Length: 25:33

Guest: Stephanie Hanaway, Director of Journal Media, American Academy of Family Physicians, board member, Association of Medical Media

Host: Jason E. Carris

Stephanie Hanaway, Director of Journal Media, American Academy of Family Physicians, joins the AMM Conversation for further discussion about data privacy in relation to medical media. Hanaway manages three peer-reviewed journals and a subscription-only periodical. She is a board member of the Association of Medical Media and previously spent a number of years in commercial publishing.

Hanaway says AAFP members have high expectations for data privacy. She says “trust” is the AAFP’s guiding principle. “As an association, if we break our members’ trust, we don’t have members, and then we do not exist,” she says. “They trust us with their data. We are not going to break that trust, period.”

She explains the current regulatory landscape is frustrating to businesses already adhering to strict data privacy guidelines. “It is very troubling from an administrative burden perspective, because, once again, all of these laws are trying to prevent or make transparent things we already are doing. But now for each state we have to jump through hoops.”

She also laments the fact Facebook and Google take the lion’s share of digital advertising, but more so because of the boundaries big tech companies push (ahem, break) with their users’ data. Now, with many advertisers accepting of such practices, “it makes it harder for those of us trying to do it the right and ethical way to compete in that world. … Consumers are catching on, but we always are going to be battling.”

AAFP was reticent to work with any digital vendors up until just a few years ago, when the reality of publishing in the 21st century requires partnerships. Hanaway says AAFP has an extremely “thorough process” to vet vendors and protect data storage and sharing; she suggests all publishers and associations should do so likewise. “We are extraordinarily careful with digital [vendors] to make sure we are really nailed down legally.”

Hanaway helped create the AMM’s Principles of Online Privacy statement, which published in the fall of 2018 following the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal. “It’s not just a matter of principles and ethics, it is a matter of ethics… If your audience no longer trusts you, you don’t have a business anymore.”

Physicians do understand the trade-off of advertising exposure when engaging with medical media, she says. “If you use the data right, and they are going to be exposed to advertising anyway, shouldn’t that ad be helpful to the physician?” Hanaway thinks AAFP members are OK with and expect such a transaction, but re-selling the user data? Her physicians likely would say “no, thank you.”

She implores medical marketers to avoid “getting lost in the data,” and medical media companies to “guard that data with your life.”

References:

• NPR’s comprehensive look at the Cambridge Analytica scandal, including Facebook’s $643k fine and changes to privacy policies. And check out the United Kingdom’s Data Protection Act of 1998, the law that triggered the case against Facebook.
• Read the AAFP’s Privacy Policy.
• Read AMM’s Principles of Online Privacy statement (PDF).

Next: Ep. 3 features data privacy discussion with Jon Bigelow, Executive Director of the Coalition for Healthcare Communication, and an AMM Board Member.

Contact us: AMM Conversation is the official podcast of the Association of Medical Media. Send questions and comments about this podcast series to [e-mail].