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  "path": "/t/how-do-i-compellingly-advocate-for-my-privacy-with-doctors-and-other-healthcare-professionals/38299#post_14",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-03T19:49:25.000Z",
  "site": "https://discuss.privacyguides.net",
  "tags": [
    "in the US, by law,  a doctor can only use Gmail, if it’s a business google account."
  ],
  "textContent": "lothes540:\n\n> There’s your key mistaken assumption: that using Gmail or WhatsApp would automatically give a data protection agency cause to act.\n>\n> “I don’t like Google or Facebook” is not a bullet point in privacy law. A patient can object, ask for another communication method, complain to a regulator, or go elsewhere. But that is different from showing the clinic is doing something unlawful.\n\n**If doctor-patient confidentiality prevents you from sharing information with third parties without your patient’s consent, aren’t you violating it by using WhatsApp and Gmail?**\nAnd this applies to any organization. Not just healthcare workers and lawyers.\n\nMoreover, if I request to be contacted via Signal, I suspect my doctor won’t agree to download a new app just for me. They could argue that it messes up their workflow.\n\nlothes540:\n\n> I also think it’s worth being realistic about leverage here. You can control what channels you personally agree to use.\n\nYes. But we could end up in a stalemate if I refuse to use WhatsApp or accept emails from Gmail.\n\nlothes540:\n\n> You cannot force a clinic to redesign its systems just because you dislike the vendors involved.\n\nI am not talking about an entire clinic, but a single doctor’s practice.\nFrom my experience, it is usually single practices that use Gmail. Where I am, most doctors in a hospital or clinic have their own practice. There is no clinic or hospital email provider. In the same hospital, you could have one doctor who uses Gmail and another who has their own private domain.\n\nI don’t think it’s unachievable to push for a policy that demands that doctors and businesses don’t use Gmail. It’s my understanding that in the US, by law,  a doctor can only use Gmail, if it’s a business google account. Only then do they have some form of protection.\n\n> _Gmail is HIPAA compliant, and can be used to receive, store, or send Protected Health Information (PHI) when Google’s email service is used as part of an Enterprise Workspace Plan supported by a Business Associate Addendum to the Workspace Terms of Service._\n\nI don’t live in the US, but even if I did, my doctor doesn’t have a Google Enterprise account.",
  "title": "How do I compellingly advocate for my privacy with doctors and other healthcare professionals?"
}