is a serious issue as personal data in the internet grow exponentially. I have just recently completed a paper on informed consent in medical studies but think now it will not go far enough. In accordance with recent proposals at the Internet Governance Forum of the United Nations we might need a system that allows a personal digital right management where a server runs a checksum or does a reverse lookup before transmitting personal data – otherwise data tranfer should be aborted. See more at the EU funded project PRIME – I fear that people will no more participate in our studies if we can´t guarantee them confidentiality.