Task 3

A pharmaceutical firm has scraped data from the website Topics. Although the patient medical history and medication records are accessible only by doctors, the discussions may disclose medical conditions and medications used by patients. As a third-party, the pharmaceutical firm scrapped personally identifiable data. The sole purpose of this act was to perform market research on medicines and gather patient information for sending them marketing material. What are the LESPI implications of such an act of web-scraping? Discuss informed consent, privacy, data protection, ethical, legal, professional and social concerns of the case. Discuss the case with reference to regulations in GCC and/or Internationally (e.g. HIPAA -Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) to support your argument. You should include at least 2 references using APA referencing format.