Data Breaches and “Fax Me Your Nudes”

Feb 10

9 min read

You’d think that wasn’t a real thing, right? But yes, a major insurance company told me to do exactly that—or better yet, just send them through my Gmail account. Because that seems totally secure and professional.

The title might be shocking, but so was the situation. And if I hadn’t been in a position to just suck it up, pay out of pocket, and keep my nudes off the claims desk, I guess that’s just what it is now—medical procedures that don’t fit into the coverage box are put through ruthless scrutiny, and eventually, someone is demanding nude photos of your “coverage area.”

And if you want approval, you better hope the back-office processing center finds them compelling enough. (Yes, really.)

So, I guess I’m spiraling here. Turns out, this topic still pisses me off. And ironically, I never even filed the claim in the end.

But let’s start at the beginning.

I have four wonderful children, including identical twin boys. All my kids are about 1.5 years apart, and thanks to these adorable little humans, my stomach muscles decided they no longer needed to hold anything together.

My organs? Falling out.

My back? Shot.

My milk factory? A full-scale liability.

No amount of meds, chiropractors, or prayers to the posture gods could help. So yes, Betty Boop over here needed to go back to being a functional human—with her insides inside her body.

Now, I get it—this sounds dramatic. But it’s not. There’s an actual term for it: the postpartum body. And the fix? Oh, we’ve got a cute little name for that too—one that makes women feel like they’re sneaking off to do something scandalous—the Mommy Makeover.

Spoiler: It’s not. It’s barbaric, actually.

It’s just the only real option.

I tried. I went to multiple doctors. And every road led to a plastic surgeon.

The moment you cross that line, insurance treats it like you’re asking for an elective procedure. And guess what? A lot of these surgeons don’t even bother dealing with insurance anymore.

They have plenty of clients who prefer not to have their nudes sent off for claim consideration.

Makes sense.

Here’s the kicker—many reconstructive procedures are covered.

Breast cancer survivors? Yes.

Rapid weight loss? Yes.

Pretty much any other major medical event that messes with the body? Yes.

Crocked male parts? Yes.

But postpartum women? Absolutely not.

Because apparently, growing and birthing actual human beings doesn’t count as a valid reason for your body to need fixing.

So, welcome to motherhood—where you’re expected to bounce back but not get help doing it.

And if you do ask for help?

Get ready to fax your nudes.

Now, Let’s Talk About the Procedure

If you’re squeamish, skip ahead. Just know it’s long, brutal, and somehow still considered optional.

I watched Vikings and thought, outside of dismemberment, was that me on a table?

Still here? Cool.

So, I walk into a doctor’s office—not a hospital—where they make an incision from hip to hip, reposition my organs, reinforce everything with mesh, and stitch my stomach muscles back together.

Then, because this is technically plastic surgery, they smooth things out, adjust the skin, and relocate my belly button so it doesn’t look like it’s questioning all my life choices.

And after all that?

I go home.

No hospital stay. No round-the-clock medical care. Just a nurse for one night and a walker while I pray I don’t sneeze.

For three weeks, I can’t even stand up straight, and if something goes wrong? Too bad—insurance might deny my ER visit because the whole thing wasn’t pre-approved.

And yet, this is considered vanity—because the only thing preventing coverage wasn’t my doctors, my medical records, or even common sense.

It was whether my nudes passed insurance review.

When Did We Stop Trusting Our Doctors?

Was it really medically necessary for an insurance company to require an external medical review by someone in a back office—instead of trusting the expertise of my own doctors?

When did we decide that the judgment of highly trained specialists wasn’t enough?

I went to some of the top doctors in my area, specialists with years of experience, who all agreed on the best course of treatment. Yet none of that matters to a medical reviewer—someone who had never met me, never examined me, and was making decisions based on photos instead of actual medical expertise.

And the best part? They also told me I could snap these little incriminating photos from the convenience of my personal mobile phone.

Because that seems like a great idea.

Isn’t that exactly what we teach people never to do?

Never take nude selfies? Never store sensitive images on your phone? Feels like

Personal Internet Safety 101 straight out of the 90s.

And I can’t help but wonder—who exactly is sitting behind those screens?

A qualified reviewer carefully analyzing medical necessity?

An AI-assisted agent running through approvals at record speed?

Or someone munching on a bowl of popcorn, casually flipping through my most vulnerable moments like they’re watching a twisted reality show—gasps, gags, and “oh, what a freak show” reactions included?

How did we get here? When did insurance companies gain more power over patient care than the doctors actually treating us?

Or has an AI model already been trained to approve or deny my claim based on an image?

I guess I’ll never know—because I still can’t bring myself to fax my nudes.

And as you can imagine, there is a recording out there—attached to a case ID—where I am repeating back the instructions I had just been given:

"So, you want me to fax you naked pictures of myself? My entire body? Because your fax machine is secure? Or I can email them using my Gmail account?"

I swear I could hear the hesitation before the confirmation:

"Uh…yes, you should send us your nudes—wait, I mean…your ‘Coverage Area.’"

My nudes = My "Coverage Area."

I see a t-shirt.

The Brutal Reality: The Worst Pain of My Life

Hands down, the most traumatic medical procedure of my life—worse than almost dying in childbirth with my twins.

Women ask me if they should get this, and I don’t sugarcoat it. If you’re me, you have no choice. But the support? Nowhere near enough to make this remotely okay.

Oh, and let’s talk about that for a second—because this might actually be the worst part. For 12 weeks, you’re wrapped in a tight, unforgiving compression suit that holds everything together like you’re a fragile art restoration project.

Functional? Yes.

Comfortable? Not even remotely.

And the look? Let’s just say it’s giving Victorian corset meets medical-grade shapewear, with strong Madame at an underground cabaret vibes.

Dignity? Gone.

Mobility? Questionable.

The moment you can finally peel it off? Pure freedom.

Why Am I So Passionate About This?

Because the processes that create data are broken, leading to frequent and severe data breaches.

Why were my nudes the determining factor for coverage?

Riddle me that.

Healthcare Data Breaches Are Exploding

2021: 655 breaches, 44 million patients affected
2022: 707 breaches, 52 million patients affected
2023: 725 breaches, 133 million patients affected
(hipaajournal.com)

And 2024 is even worse:

Lehigh Valley Health Network: $65M settlement after nude cancer patient photos leaked. (wsj.com)
Change Healthcare: Cyberattack exposed 100 million patient records (healthcareitnews.com)
UnitedHealth Group (Feb 2024): 190 million patients compromised—the largest healthcare breach in U.S. history. (wsj.com)

The numbers keep growing. The system is broken.

And no one is keeping our data safe.

These examples highlight a terrifying truth:

Our personal data isn’t safe. The systems designed to protect it are failing.
But even worse—why did they need those pics in the first place?
If you want something so intimate and personal, shouldn’t you be able to unequivocally protect it?

No one—while their organs are literally making a break for the exit—wants to snap a burlesque-inspired photoshoot for their adoring significant other, wait - I mean insurer!

Bad Data, Bad AI, and the Broken Process

I’ll dive deeper into this when I publish The Broken Process, but here’s the reality:

We’re moving full speed into an AI-driven world, where AI isn’t just using data—it’s entirely dependent on it.

And now, AI is generating data at an exponential rate—based on bad data.

Most people don’t realize how flawed and vulnerable the data pipeline actually is. Or that we are the data pipeline.

What many don’t know about me is that I’ve spent most of my career obsessed with data—not just using it, but understanding the intricate connections that make it powerful.

That’s why I wrote Autonomous Use Case—it’s how I see data, how I see feeding AI.

But here’s the real issue: our very processes are putting our data at risk.

Does it seem logical that we debate whether AI can use copyrighted data to train models, yet no one questions businesses demanding my nudes as part of their standard practices? Can we talk about when this—along with all the other high-risk, questionable data collection methods—will finally be addressed?

The government has started protecting copyrighted content with a firm "hands off, AI!" But when it comes to businesses feeding sensitive, personal data into the AI ether, the response is "don't worry, it's protected—it’s for internal purposes."

Translation: You lost ownership of your nudes, and now they’re corporate assets.

Kind of like when you call customer service, and they inform you that "this call may be recorded for training purposes"—whether you like it or not.

So we’re arguing over whether AI training on copyrighted content qualifies as "fair use"—but my nudes? Totally fair game.

I suspect this may be a novel idea…

And when you stop to consider just how many people are involved in processing your claim—less than 10, hundreds? Thousands? Can anyone who works there just pull up my pics?

Has anyone ever asked? I certainly haven’t.

Because let’s be real—if no one is asking the question, we probably won’t like the answer.

Maybe after this little doozy of an article, I’ll get the honor of making the corporate training video. Title: "So You Want to Scroll Through Sensitive Data… or feed it into AI."

Breached—And No One's in a Hurry to Tell You

When our data is compromised, we don’t get immediate alerts.

Instead, we receive vague letters months or even years later—by then, who knows where our information has already gone?

Can you imagine?

“Here’s Lauresa, doing an AI talk. Let’s pull up her presentation—oops—yeah, can’t live that one down.”

I plan to own it one day.

And Don’t Even Get Me Started on Smart Tech

Your phone.

Your grocery app.

Your smart devices.

Your smart TVs that never stop listening. (come on we've all had a creepy moment where it says randomly can you repeat that.)

Even your lights are tuning into your conversations, waiting for commands that never come.

Like, seriously—flipping a switch is too much now?

There once was a clapper for lazy people.

Scarier still, this raises two possibilities:

No one is required to tell me if my naked photos are leaked to the world.
(Maybe that’s liberating in some twisted way?)
They simply didn’t know—until hackers show up with a ransom note:
“Hey, hey—we’ve got these compromising patient details. Care to pay up?”

Somewhere along the way, we lost control over protecting our own data.

And from what I’ve read? Privacy is dead. Security is a myth.

Instead, we’re left trusting businesses and apps to safeguard our most personal details—while they work tirelessly to collect more data.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Oh, the places we’ll go! But let’s break it down:

For Everyday People Just Trying to Live Life:

If you’re at a doctor’s office, business, or anywhere being asked to divulge personal information that makes you feel vulnerable—stop and ask if it’s actually required.

Is it necessary, or are you just feeding another back-office movie reel—one that will eventually get hacked, leaked, or repurposed for profit?

If you’re handing over information to "protect" a business, create a data asset, or worse—fuel targeted marketing back at you—ask yourself: Is it worth it?

Ever wonder why you mention something once, and suddenly your feed is flooded with ads?

Your data isn’t just being collected—it’s being harvested, sold, and strategically used to influence you for someone else’s gain.

And here’s the kicker—while businesses are profiting off your data, they take zero responsibility when it gets stolen—unless a court forces them to.

So before handing over one more piece of yourself, ask: Who really benefits from this exchange?

For Decision-Makers Handling Data & Processes:

If you collect, store, or process data, ask yourself—do you actually need it?

Or is your outdated process creating a future liability?

Or worse yet—is it training your AI models?

Because let’s be real, bad data in = bad AI out.

You don’t want to be the next case study in algorithmic failure—kind of like my Avatar problems in AI Gender Bias: Name That Tune!

My Take on Data & The Reality of Time

My thoughts on data are coming soon, but here’s a preview:

Data has a shelf life.
It’s only valuable when it’s actively used and relevant.
The longer it sits idle, the more it loses its value and becomes a trivia game.
Think about it—data evolves just like people.
Some milestones matter, but most don’t.
Yet, companies hoard data as if every piece is equally valuable, creating unnecessary work and massive security risks for no reason.
Use your data now. Extract its relevance now. Then purge it.