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  "path": "/t/how-do-i-compellingly-advocate-for-my-privacy-with-doctors-and-other-healthcare-professionals/38299#post_18",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-04T08:45:27.000Z",
  "site": "https://discuss.privacyguides.net",
  "textContent": "WhinyHamletPayer:\n\n> It makes life quite difficult if you take a hard line against anyone that doesn’t meet your privacy threshold\n\nI hear you, but it’s not just about my privacy standards, and I would argue that in this case it’s not primarily about them either. It’s about the law and the confidentiality rules of medical practice. If the law and privacy policy of a practice say they are not allowed to share data with third parties without consent, then it’s only fair that I should confront them with their contradictions.\n\nIf a restaurant has a smart dress code that is written on their website and a huge sign in front of their venue, but I see multiple tables with people dressed in casual sportswear and beachwear, then it’s only fair to call the restaurant out for this contradiction and violation of their own policy.\n\nWhinyHamletPayer:\n\n> Compromise with your doctor’s office on Gmail and Whatsapp, but be vigilant against the direct sharing of your health data.\n\nI hear you too on compromise. But as I previously said, I am concerned about my doctor being unwilling to meet me there or forgetting to meet me there because I am the only one of their patients that has a separate unique protocol for communication.\n\nHere’s what compromise would look like to me:\n\n  1. **WhatsApp chats will self-destruct.**\n\n\n\nThis is easy for me to implement. In fact, it’s easy to implement without the other party noticing. Because I am the one doing it, I will remember to keep a record of our communication via screenshots, but my doctor will likely have no record of it because they will probably not notice I enabled disappearing messages.\n\nI have done it many times with businesses, but I do admit that with doctors and certain businesses, I hesitate to enable it, for fear that it could upset them. First, because they wouldn’t know that I kept a record of our communication unless something went wrong and I had to use it. Secondly, even though all parties get notified when disappearing messages are enabled, they might not be paying close attention and could feel like I tricked them when I didn’t.\n\n  2. **Only email me if it’s a response to an E2EE email I sent you.**\n\n\n\nThis means that I will always email you first via a password-protected E2EE email from Proton Mail. And all your emails need to be an E2EE encrypted response to my emails.\nThis also means that my doctor will have no permanent record of email exchanges because they expire after 30 days. It also means that if my doctor needs to email me over a month after I emailed them, they cannot do it because the email won’t be E2EE.\n\nI could easily imagine doctors being annoyed by this.\n\n  3. **Send files only via password-protected E2EE cloud services like Tresorit**\n\n\n\nThat means never send me files directly as attachments. Not via WhatsApp. Not via email.\n\nI could easily imagine doctors being annoyed by this too.\n\n**1) Do you think my terms for a compromise are reasonable?**\n**2) And do you think a doctor and their receptionist would accept them?**\n\nWhinyHamletPayer:\n\n> You can also request that AI not be used for the transcription of your appointments (something I’ve noticed with my doctors).\n\nYes, I have done that before with another doctor, and I am still waiting to hear back from her.\nAnd again, maybe I am too skeptical, but I am not convinced a doctor who uses AI transcription for every patient will be willing to abstain for one patient. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying, though.",
  "title": "How do I compellingly advocate for my privacy with doctors and other healthcare professionals?"
}