Facebook sent a doctor on a secret mission to ask hospitals to share patient data

Christina Farr:

While the data shared would obscure personally identifiable information, such as the patient’s name, Facebook proposed using a common computer science technique called “hashing” to match individuals who existed in both sets. Facebook says the data would have been used only for research conducted by the medical community.

This is fine, it’s not like data earmarked for only one type of application every gets out.