Hi.,

A disabled person as someone who has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. Disabled individuals are usually unable to work, or they are unable to complete the tasks they normally would have prior to their disability. If your condition is severe and you are unable to do your job, the Social Security Administration may label you as disabled, and you may qualify for disability.

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http://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/2000/3/00.03.06.x.html

Hello,

An intriguing question. Is this questionnaire service related or is it surveillance. In the US personal information given by a disabled person before they are on a government provided disability payment is a very anxious time and they feel as though anything they do will be working against them if they are not very careful about how they communicate their disability. They feel intimidated by the system at this point irregardless of the kind of disability the individual is experiencing.

This is the premise that sets up an impossible wall for many to get themselves back to work and off of disability if they return to any form of normalized health. The disability payment is just enough to live - but not enough to enjoy life, and reduce the stress that likely caused the situation to begin with but yet with no road back they flounder and remain on disability.

So depending on the stage of processing of the disability claim this consideration is also a challenge. After completion of this approval process they then become very protective of anything that might disrupt "disability". If they then have health that for any reason gets better they feel intimidated by the process of what the US calls the "Ticket to Work" program which is fundamentally flawed idea because of the negative spin that this system puts into peoples lives, putting them to work doing some menial task even if they had done extraordinary work previous to disability.

A long answer to a short question but this is a strong challenge to our ability to allow disabled people the opportunity to be a part of society on their own terms.

"How important is the sharing of personal data for persons with disabilities?" is a complex question.

Data, I believe can be categorized into three classes.

1 - Personal (The stuff I don't want others to see),

2 - Private (The stuff that's okay to share with some others - Groups),

3 - Public (The stuff anyone can view).

Having a disability can make this modern age more difficult to navigate.

Many disabled people(s), Myself being one of them, have a handicap (for lack of better words) that restricts them from living average digital life. Whether having a physical or mental disability governs how easily it is for them to pickup new technology, understand it, and/or drive it to the next level, and is greatly influenced by current technologies, finance, and their abilities to assimilate technology. Not without saying, this is in vast contrast to the non-disabled that take these issues for granted.

It is very important to me (Being a physically disabled middle aged man), for me to be able to access and share my ideas and knowledge, as well as be able to access knowledge of new or old Technology, that makes our lives more complex every day as technology grows. However, this forces us into an everlasting upward slope to take in these technologies. Not just to understand how to use them (Which makes our lives easier and harder at the same time), but to also understand how to fix them. It is hard enough for the older generation that have no understanding of new technologies (Which they would rather it stay that way, and is a disability in it's own right), but to have other disabilities makes it more necessary for disabled individuals to share and access data across a wide variety of mediums, than not.

Further, disabled people often have their disability get in the way of doing average every day things, let alone having to understand new technologies that can be challenging without a disability being involved, in it's own right.

So, I believe the question should be:

How important is the protection of and security from, and for them to be, in relation to them; sharing of personal data for persons with disabilities, and the aging?

After all, senior citizens are constantly being phished, smished, and duped into giving out their credit cards and social security numbers among other sensitive details that are needed to access financials. And the aging do not understand that simply telling someone your dog's name, to a hacker can be very dangerous if your password is your dog's name.

This age of technology gets more complicated each and every day. We struggle just to have a comprehensive working knowledge to be able to work with it. Disabilities get in the way of carrying groceries to my car, let alone trying to access E-mail when my sciatic nerve is acting up. We either adapt and overcome, or we are left by the way side of this amazing modern lifestyle intertwined with technology, even when we do not see it.

Great comment! Thanks so much for your reply.

Thank you Nabil. No problem. Any time.