The Up and Coming of Technology
BIS-220
April 3, 2013
Charles "Page" Waller

The Up and Coming of Technology
Information technology is one of the most in demand fields in the world, because of the fact it has many influences in government policy that have passed through the years. The Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 were just a couple of policies effected by the impact of information technology. The policies were made to protect the American citizens in ways of obtaining free credit reports and the privacy of personal medical records, which individually will be discussed in the essay. "You hear the terminology Fair Credit Reporting Act and you think that's an act that only applies to credit reports," Paul Stephens (Dilworth, 2012). One would think this quote is right, but it is the complete opposite. In 1970, the Fair Credit Reporting Act was established to help citizens from getting ridiculed by massive organizations that wanted to use his or her credit reports against them. The organizations acquired the information that was only available to them and was not intended to be shared. The policy permitted everyone the right to keep track of his or her own credit report. This gives the companies restricted access to credit reports which under F.C.R.A one cannot share information with anyone, cannot affect him or her from getting a job, one needs permission to access information, and one can get a free credit report once a year (Dilworth, 2012) . As a result private and local organizations were starting to keep a tally on credit reports that ultimately created the national credit reporting system.
To accomplish something of this magnitude one will have to design a computer built program that can keep track of American citizen’s information. It would have to be organized regularly, accessible, and accurate on each individual’s information. In the 1970s, technology was truly in its preliminary days of displaying innovative techniques of communicating, reading, writing without books, and new machines that think (Bosker, 2013). The first Apple computer, the introduction of the digital camera, and the debut of the Altair computer that was invented by Dr. H. Edward "Ed" Roberts were the remarkable creations of the vivid minds of the 1970s (Bosker, 2013). Thus information technology, in the way of computer programs, was acquired so that the national credit reporting system could gather the proper data of one’s information.
When entering a doctor’s office the first thing one is told to do is to fill out all his or her information that will go into his or her medical record. In the back off one’s mind does he or she ever wonder who looks at your information, is it public or private or is ones information being protected. One has every right to think of those questions, because it is one’s private information that should not be accessible to the entire world. In 1996 the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was initially developed to protect individuals with health care plans that lost or changed his or her job for whatever reason. It as well included Title II that requires the health industry to move in the direction of electronic filing of patient’s information (Bowers, 2001). Here is where technology plays a significant role in the health care administrative side because information technology techs will retrieve, store, and transmit all the information for the hospitals. Therefore with this firsthand view on electronic filing the government established privacy and security rules (HIPAA) to give patients a peace of mind when it came to his or her records.
With many influences on numerous policies over the years, information technology will continually be the most in demand field in the world for further years to come. The Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act displayed how information technology can be a way to protect people’s important information or it can be a way to maximize organization from consuming too much power. As the late Steve Jobs quoted, “The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it to a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people––as remarkable as the telephone (Bosker, 2013).”

References

Bosker, B. (2013, Feb 18). Life as a Tech Reporter in the 1970s, At the dawn of the PC Age. Retrieved from http://huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/18/1970s-technology-tech reporter
Bowers, D. (2001, October). The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act: Is it really all that bad? Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc1305898/
Dilworth, K. (August 16, 2012). A Guide to Your Rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Retrieved from http://foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/08/14/guide-to-your-rights- under-free-credit-report