For the multitudes of people with chronic health conditions or who take lots of medication -- especially the elderly -- keeping track of health records and what doctors say is exceedingly difficult.

Google launched its latest service aimed at exactly this group of people called Google Health. The Google Health service aims to provide users with one location for their health records from participating pharmacies, hospitals and more. Users can also add information to their health records themselves.

The issue for many with Google Health is that the service has lots of risk and potential security issues. One big problem for privacy and security advocates is that people who are already Google users can opt into Google Health with their one universal login used for Gmail, Google Calendars, and other Google services.

The problem with this is that there is no security limits imposed on passwords. Someone could be using a very easy password for hackers to discover. The issue then would be that while it might not be a big deal for someone to access emails from mom, getting a hold of your personal medical history with the same universal login could pose a huge problem.

As DailyTech reported before, Google Health is not a HIPAA covered entity. This means that it does not have to follow the same safety and security practices that other institutions like a pharmacy, doctor or hospital has to.

In defense of the security of Google Health, Google says that many of the things that it does to protect people’s health records are better than what HIPAA requires. All of this is for naught if a users password is something like their name and birth date when a hacker comes knocking.

ArsTechnica reports that the service itself is easy to use and that entering custom data is easy to do. Importation of medical records is also said to be easy to accomplish assuming your healthcare providers are among the small cadre of supported providers including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Cleveland Clinic, Longs Drug Stores, and Walgreens Pharmacy along with a few others.

Importing information in this instance is reported to be as easy as logging into accounts with the providers and checking a box allowing Google to access the information.

Aside from privacy concerns and ease of use, for many the issue with Google Health and similar services is usefulness. How many people will actually be willing to take the time to enter all of this information? A few users will find the service to be great. For most it will be a daunting task with limited usefulness outside of personal satisfaction. Healthcare providers will be hard pressed to take a patient at their word that medical information is accurate.

Many remain skeptical as to whether medical professionals will trust information that comes from a patient without being able to verify the accuracy of the information with the original health records. This is the single biggest problem with Google Health for many.