UK national databases getting out of control

Heineken Helen

Now that I'm living in England, it's very apparent that the government here just LOVE intruding into peoples lives... There've been a couple of personal incidents since I've been here that I won't go into detail on but it's shocked me.

As of tomorrow, every single website that I and everybody in the UK visit will be stored on a national database :roll: so I was googling this national database and was shocked at the number of other national databases I found :shock: Are they fucking serious??????????????

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandte ... -year.html

There is also a national health database that can be viewed by hundreds of thousands of staff... where ALL medical records will be held. You can opt out of it BEFORE it starts but, once your details are on the database, they cannot be deleted.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 036286.ece

And THEN you have the genetic database:

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/46909,opi ... s-children

It analyses a selection of factors such as where they live; who their friends are; how stable their family is and how much income it has; how often they have been late for medical or dental appointments; their parents' mental and sexual health, and so forth. This is tackling the problem entirely the wrong way round. If the relevant factors in being able to predict a person's criminality are already well known, then by the same token so too are the causes the causes that need to be addressed directly, without having to identify anyone through intrusive recording of personal data on a nationwide scale.

Heineken Helen

Many of them have even been found to be illegal (duh!) but my bet is they'll go ahead anyway :roll:

http://www.policeprofessional.com/news.aspx?id=8415

Hinn

If I didn't have access to the national health database, I'd be quite fucked in that job I'm starting in tomorrow

Heineken Helen

Hinn wrote:

If I didn't have access to the national health database, I'd be quite fucked in that job I'm starting in tomorrow

Firstly congrats

Secondly why so? Didn't they cope without databases forever? And they weren't fucked! In fairness, from what they say, YOU now have access to MY health records if you want... is that true?

OutOfBreath

Speaking as an employee in a public agency handling private information (The Norwegian Labour and Welfare agency), where are they going to store health data if not in databases? And wouldn't it be rather pointless if the medical staff couldn't access them when treating you? Most likely very few people have the overall access to the data (select "superusers"), although probably a lot of people have access to quite a bit of it. so the claim houndreds of thousands is a bit overblown, even if many have access to some info.

I have access myself to just about any info about any person in Norway that has relation to welfare benefits, unemployment benefits etc. which is key to my job. But, very few people have that thorough access. Most employees in the organization can see "their own" people which come in to their office, and live within that office's jurisdiction.

So I'm not worried about a national health registry that much.

Monitoring internet-use is a different matter altogether, and I will stand by your dissent towards that.

Peace
Dan

Heineken Helen

OutOfBreath wrote:

Speaking as an employee in a public agency handling private information (The Norwegian Labour and Welfare agency), where are they going to store health data if not in databases? And wouldn't it be rather pointless if the medical staff couldn't access them when treating you? Most likely very few people have the overall access to the data (select "superusers"), although probably a lot of people have access to quite a bit of it. so the claim houndreds of thousands is a bit overblown, even if many have access to some info.

I have access myself to just about any info about any person in Norway that has relation to welfare benefits, unemployment benefits etc. which is key to my job. But, very few people have that thorough access. Most employees in the organization can see "their own" people which come in to their office, and live within that office's jurisdiction.

So I'm not worried about a national health registry that much.

Monitoring internet-use is a different matter altogether, and I will stand by your dissent towards that.

Peace
Dan

I'm just going by the links claiming that hundreds of thousands of people working for either the government or public bodies will have access to these databases. I'll be gladly proven wrong though and, from what I've seen, I don't think the Norwegian databases will be comparable to the English ones... since they're working towards a central database where ALL this information will be centralised :oops: If your internet usage is stored alongside your health records and your telephone communication and your DNA (if they have it... likely they will in the coming years) it's a bit more than just 'ensuring a good service', it's monitoring the people... they're talking of biometric ID cards :oops: . This stuff isn't just a fantasy anymore or a conspiracy theory... it's actually happening :(

And whatever happened to doctor patient confidentiality?

Hinn

Heineken Helen wrote:

Hinn wrote:

If I didn't have access to the national health database, I'd be quite fucked in that job I'm starting in tomorrow

Firstly congrats

Secondly why so? Didn't they cope without databases forever? And they weren't fucked! In fairness, from what they say, YOU now have access to MY health records if you want... is that true?

It's only been one day, so I may well come across gross inefficiencies in due time, but in Australia they're still mostly living in a paper age. Paper has a tendency to go missing, especially with the rough and tear and pages falling out from medical records- I've seen a lot of pages drop down onto the trolly holding the case files, many times to do with silly little things like the binders being faulty. In a busy hospital, the staff will just want to get the notes over and done with, and move straight back to the tasks of primary medical and nursing care, neglecting things like pages coming free from the binders.

With an electronic system, this doesn't happen. Yes, there absolutely are risks associated with security, and issues around access. Again, it's just been one day, but I'm already seeing a clear cut hierarchy in accessing files. I don't have access to yours, because I don't work for the relevant NHS trust in your area. Managers higher up the departmental chain will, but it's safe to assume that on the whole they'd be more concerned about quantitative figures across the system generated from these records than qualitative details of individual cases. It's also a crapload easier to come up with those quantitative figures when it's all computerised, making things more efficient, cutting down costs.

It all comes down to costs and efficiency.

Hinn

As for doctor patient confidentialty, there had to be changes made to take into account real life circumstances. Abuse of minors is the most obvious one that has come up in recent decades, as more and more people realised they can no longer pretend it doesn't happen.

I should visit again and try to go through all your points bit by bit. Not saying your points aren't valid, but having worked in a paper-based system, this is one bit of the UK health and social care system that I'm really enjoying.

I've got a biometric ID card as a Hong Kong permanent resident. The way I sees it, it just means it takes me 7 seconds to clear immigration by going through the gates with that card, followed by a thumbprint scan, while all the gwi-low are queueing up for like a half hour