Patient Photographs: Privacy Versus Protection.

OBJECTIVE: Technologies to obtain point-of-care photographs along with medical imaging studies are now available. We discuss the protections that photographs can provide in radiology and the potential privacy and legal issues that can arise with their incorporation.

CONCLUSION: Point-of-care photographs that are simultaneously obtained with medical imaging studies can provide biometric identification that enables detection of wrong-patient errors. Photographs also provide image-related clinical context. However, successful implementation of such technologies requires consideration of the privacy and legal issues perceived by stakeholders.