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App lets home health care aides be tracked

To the editor:

North Country Home Services, the largest provider of home health care services in our region, has chosen to allow its employees to use a “Mobile Visit Verification” (or MVV) app (like a computer program for phones) for aides to clock in and out when they visit the homes of their clients.

I object to the use of this Mobile Visit Verification app that uses real-time GPS location data to track an aide’s movements and EXACT location, whether she is working or not. The app is downloaded to the aide’s PRIVATE cellphone, which could endanger the aide and her clients to public exposure of sensitive and private data.

This program, when used by administrators at NCHS or by the company that created it (Sandata), can follow “breadcrumb” trails pinpointing every move of the home health aide, whether the aide is working that day or not. This violates employee privacy rights and client privacy rights.

A client’s personal health information, residence address, name and client ID is being stored, transferred and transmitted from the aide’s private phone WITHOUT the informed consent of home health clients.

I would like NCHS clients and employees to know that it is their right to be fully informed BEFORE any item or program that could violate their privacy is brought into their homes (or put on their phones).

Clients can ask to have the aides stop using the app to prevent their personal identity information, health care services provided and EXACT location from being exposed to any predator or criminal.

For more information about this, I will respond to emails from the public sent to RealWorldasDisabled@gmail.com. All emails must be civil and respectful.

Thank you,

Debra A. Buell

Plattsburgh

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