Electronic databases and privacy protection: issues for a free society.

More efficiently managed programs of health insurance claims processing and remittance with reduced costs and paperwork burdens hold out the potential for increased benefits to subscribers and health insurers alike. The computer/telecommunications systems and databases by which these efficiencies may be realized also hold great promise for improved services in other arenas. Early and candid recognition of the equally great potential for danger and abuse in those systems and the technology can guide the development and implementation of appropriate and necessary safeguards to individual privacy and to a democratic society in concert with system design.