Medical Records - perhaps not all that confidential...

[grumbledoak]

marmitemania said:

Whilst we are on the subject of things being anonymous, does anyone know why when you vote there is a number on the corner of the voting slip that corresponds with your name on a list? I used to cross this out as voting is supposed to be anonymous, but then realized it would be a spoil t paper and not count. In my opinion nothing in this country is private or secret unless it's the governments own underhanded ways. Sits back and awaits the tin foil hat comments.

Your vote is not anonymous. The government keeps a record and makes that information available to political parties among others.

[marmitemania]

I assume the 1872 Ballot act is no more then?

[grumbledoak]

marmitemania said:

I assume the 1872 Ballot act is no more then?

I've no idea. I remarked on the barcode on both paper and retained slip to the lady at the desk when I noticed it some years back. The smug cow just smiled at me as she wrote my number on the slip.

[Jasandjules]

Had my confirmation from the GP that my confidential medical records will not be passed around to third parties.

Still can't quite believe this information is not being made more public by MSM.

[Gareth79]

marmitemania said:

Whilst we are on the subject of things being anonymous, does anyone know why when you vote there is a number on the corner of the voting slip that corresponds with your name on a list? I used to cross this out as voting is supposed to be anonymous, but then realized it would be a spoil t paper and not count. In my opinion nothing in this country is private or secret unless it's the governments own underhanded ways. Sits back and awaits the tin foil hat comments.

As far as I know that would be the electoral roll number. It would require somebody to look through all ballot papers to find how one specific person voted, but allows there to be a link between the vote and the roll, presumably for vote fraud investigations,.

[CoolHands]

Hey fellow tin-foilers!

Post something useful - what do I need to do to opt out? Link / form / wording of letter to send to my gp or what? Cheers

[Jasandjules]

CoolHands said:

Hey fellow tin-foilers!

Post something useful - what do I need to do to opt out? Link / form / wording of letter to send to my gp or what? Cheers

Link is in the OP to the website where the doctors have drafted the wording to ensure compliance.

[CoolHands]

Ah, thanks.

[eliot]

Yet people update twittersnapchatbook every 30 second with what they are doing, where they are and what they have just bought.

[CoolHands]

I will complete opt out form tomorrow. Am I already too late? I notice it says after it's been uploaded by gps it will be too late to try and opt out.

[Terminator X]

More medical records being released with no patient scrutiny at all, don't worry though it will all be fine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36191546

Interesting snippet:

"Our arrangement with DeepMind is the standard NHS information-sharing agreement set out by NHS England's corporate information governance department, and is the same as the other 1,500 agreements with third-party organisations that process NHS patient data."

Yes you can opt out but FFS why isn't it opt in as it should be + even if you do opt out how do you know that your data is no longer there when being shared?!

TX.

[Stupeo]

Terminator X said:

More medical records being released with no patient scrutiny at all, don't worry though it will all be fine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36191546

Interesting snippet:

"Our arrangement with DeepMind is the standard NHS information-sharing agreement set out by NHS England's corporate information governance department, and is the same as the other 1,500 agreements with third-party organisations that process NHS patient data."

Yes you can opt out but FFS why isn't it opt in as it should be + even if you do opt out how do you know that your data is no longer there when being shared?!

TX.

The NHS ISA (Info Sharing Agreement) is not any easy thing to achieve, proper checks and balances are in place with DeepMind before they can even receive the data.

There are some real tangible benefits to what DeepMind are trying to do - preventative medicine/population health is the future and projects like this really help push this forward.

[EnglishTony]

Bear in mind that a future private health insurer may well turn down applicants whose medical data is not freely available.

[Terminator X]

Yet more robots helping to keep us safe:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37653588

"IBM AI system Watson to diagnose rare diseases in Germany"

TX.

[Rawwr]

Stupeo said:

There are some real tangible benefits to what DeepMind are trying to do - preventative medicine/population health is the future and projects like this really help push this forward.

I'm inclined to agree. It is exactly projects like this where machine learning from unimaginably vast amounts of data can really be put to good use and help people. A single person, a team of people, a complex query or even a series of complex queries running over big farms cannot come close to scratching the surface of the ability of things like DeepMind. We now have the technology (or at least the strong beginnings of the technology) to be able to figure out important and complex things in the slightest fraction of the amount of time it'd take with traditional methods, and with higher degrees of accuracy.

It's a good thing. Bring it on.

YMMV.

[Guvernator]

Medical confidentiality, what's that then? I have a friend who has worked on IT projects for the NHS, anyone thinking their medical data is currently safe and secure is living in la la land. In fact anyone determined to get at that data is more likely to be foiled by how rubbish the systems are and that a lot of the data is in disparate places rather then any sort of concerted effort by those responsible to keep it safe and secure according to him.