UK Gov flogging your records!

[Hexadex]

I don’t know who you think you are, but you keep your informed, reasonable opinions to yourself! Everyone KNOWS the Tories are evil scum lords who want to sell the Holy And Perfect NHS to vampires and capitalist pigdogs.

Too right. I’ve opted out.

 

[Corranga]

QUOTE="2b1ask1, post: 875901, member: 595"]

Amidst the mass of confusion that has been Covid and other such distractions, the UK government have managed to push through the ability to sell your heath records to anyone who has the ability to pay! Now I am not a scare monger or conspiracy theorist but think about this for a moment...

Your heath records, from birth, any notes at all to do with a visit to a GP/hospital/district nurse/health visitor, even the school nurse! It likely contains intimate details, maybe your sexual orientation, health, or if you have discussed a family history of disorders etc. Now think about who might be interested in this??? Say if you decided to emigrate, or were applying for life insurance, a mortgage, become a JW even! Naturally the enterprise is being sold along the lines of: It will be used for medical research and development of wonder cures. Call me cynical but I think it will be used for far more sinister reasons, if not initially then in the longer run.

The 'deal' was so secretive that nobody knew the cut off was 23rd June this year to 'opt out' and they have been forces to give an additional 2 months to this.

You Can still opt out now:

Click on this link https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/manage-your-choice/ and follow the opt out process. This will ensure that your non-GP data (hospital records and treatments etc) is not transferred as planned by the government.

And that's it! You will have stopped this government from flogging off your personal, most intimate data to anyone who can afford to pay.

[/QUOTE]

This applies only to NHS Digital, and Public Health England I believe, NHS Scotland haven't been stupid enough to do this.

There is some cause for concern, but this has also been hyped up into a drama.

Some thoughts:

This already happens - UK medical data is already collected into a central database, and this is just an improved system.
The data is anonymised, so some random person or organisation cannot just access your personal records.
The main point of it is to improve medical research, and this is a vital resource for this.
The data is intended to be provided only for medical research and policy purposes; insurance companies are explicitly excluded from access.

But:
It has been very poorly communicated, which means people are assuming it is sinister and are hyping up opposition.
The controls are not strong enough, in anonymity, postcode management and access controls.
People not unreasonably think that this is 'just the start' and while today it might be about anonymous datasets for research, soon it will be selling your sexual foibles to professional blackmailers after 'the NHS has been sold to the Americans'.
On balance I think the potential for public good outweighs the risk of private harm, so I'm in. But others may reasonably (or unreasonably) think otherwise.

The main point of it is to monetise the data for government purposes, and perhaps even to line the pockets of Tory supporters from industry.
Medical research on these data has been happening for years, this is just to appease a massive data grab from (predominantly US centric) big pharma companies, the UK government also sold themselves really short, but I guess the Tory mates rates had to kick in at some point.

The data absolutely is not anonymised. It is deidentified, or depersonalised if you prefer. These data are impossible to anonymise due to the amount of variables and specific nature that healthcare data can have.

Medical research in the UK is big business, and something that we can be considered as, except our government have just sold it all to the highest bidder, it's a pathetic way to make a quick buck, and not even a big buck a that, which, again convinces me it's simply Tory government lining the pockets of Tory chums.

The benefits were already there with sensible controls in place that allowed research to happen whilst preventing the data from being sold and transferred here there and everywhere for basically whatever purpose the buyer sees fit.

This, not only is posing as a solution for a problem that really doesn't exist, it's taking massive steps backwards from what is already in place. Rather than sensibly investing in existing systems designed to allow research and innovation whilst protecting the individuals as well as possible, and improving on them, it simply gives pharma what is wants.

 

[j s pollo]

Sorry to say if you use modern technoligy the system has been harvesting your data for a very long time even in your home Elixa for example AMPR cameras record where your car has been in the uk motorways and town centers camered up to the hilt
the system already knows so much about you unless you do a richard branson and buy your own little island in the Virgin Isles

 

[Scaf]

I can’t get very excited about this and if the data they want to sell is the same data that the NHS app allows me to access, it’s useless and incomplete anyway.
If, as we are led to believe, it will be anonymised and essentially used for research, let’s hope some good comes of it.
If it’s going to be used to target people for sales, it won’t be any worse than Google / Facebook / Amazon etc etc…….