Is the bottom of this a fundamental political issue? If you see the
state as a malign influence you want to keep them out of your life. If
you see the state as being on your side you will be happy to share your
details.

I find it hard to understand exactly what the fuss is about the Child
Benefit data - although I think their permission to run a database under
the Data Protection Act should be taken off them, given all the time I
have wasted with bureaucrats who refused to give me information because
the DPA. I have had my letter saying that my personal details are lost
in the post, along with the other 20 million. But as far as I know the
details are just the details which have always been available to anyone
to whom I sent a cheque. Why would anyone pay money for them?

The people campaigning against the NHS database obviously don't know
what mistakes are in their paper records. If we have electronic records
we patients will be able to see what is recorded about us and correct it
if necessary. And there will be a record of who has been using them and
altering them. It is all too common with paper records for them to be
tampered with if there are complaints.


Martin Rathfelder
Director
Socialist Health Association
22 Blair Road
Manchester
M16 8NS
0870 013 0065
www.sochealth.co.uk

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John Bibby wrote:
> Is Ray opposed to large databases in principle, or because the dangers &
> costs outweigh the benefits?
>
>
>
> I am ill-informed on details, and ‘eternal vigilance’ is undoubtedly
> needed - but I could be favour the NHS scheme but not the ID scheme–
> because the NHS scheme could save my life, but the advantages of the ID
> scheme are smaller.
>
>
>
> i.e.: ID benefits are small – and shift power towards the powerful
>
> NHS benefits are large – and could accrue to ME!
>
>
>
> The “man went to visit a friend in hospital” story is worrying and
> 1984-ish –is it really true?
>
>
>
> JOHN BIBBY
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* email list for Radical Statistics
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *R.Thomas
> *Sent:* 28 November 2007 09:23
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* A mass movement is needed to tackle the state's snoopers
>
>
>
>
>
> Henry Porter ([log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>) writing in the Observer
> (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,331360669-102273,00.html) calls
> for the creation of a mass movement in defence of our privacy, security
> and freedom.
>
> Porter cites the ID card database (cost: from £5.5bn to £13bn) and the
> NHS Spine (cost from £12bn to £20bn) are the largest now planned. We are
> assured that both will contain fail-safe security measures, but that is
> what we believed about the Revenue and Customs database. Helen
> Wilkinson, who has been leading a campaign against the uploading of
> information from GPs' records to the national database since she was
> wrongly identified in NHS records as an alcoholic, has an alarming story
> from last week. A man went to visit a friend in hospital, couldn't find
> him and asked someone for help. The hospital worker swiped a card and
> suddenly a list appeared of every person in every bed in every British
> hospital. Think journalists, private investigators and those thieves who
> want to know which homes might be empty.
>
> Some 300,000 people will have access to the NHS database. There are
> already stories about the records of a well-known patient being viewed
> for entertainment by 50 hospital staff in the North East. The
> government won't describe the final form of the National Identity
> Register, the database that will verify an ID card when it is swiped and
> record every important transaction in a person's life. However, we know
> that hundreds of government agencies will have access to it. That means
> a very large number of people. Abuse of the Police National Computer by
> officers illegally working for private inquiry agents is not unknown.
> After the HMRC scandal, is it really such a stretch to imagine them
> gaining access to the ID database?
>
> Few appreciate that under the EU principle of 'availability'; thousands
> of foreign law enforcement agencies are allowed access to British
> databases. Connections are being made all the time. Prepare to welcome
> the policeman from Palermo into your life.
>
> The centralisation of data in Britain has been accompanied by the
> language of 'protection' and 'care' and 'modernisation'. The reality may
> be seen in a scheme called ECCO, which is being tried out in Edinburgh
> and has caused great resentment among the homeless. ECCO allows any care
> worker to look at the information given up by people on the street in
> times of stress. The history of alcoholism, mental disturbance, child
> abuse and so forth is all retained indefinitely in the name of providing
> greater care, regardless of an individual's wishes. Privacy is one of
> the few things the homeless possess.
>
> The most alarming symptoms of the government's information binge have
> occurred in the children database, now cutely rebranded ContactPoint,
> which contains details of every child in Britain and the CAF database,
> which indefinitely holds extensive and very private profiles of children
> who have needed one or other special educational service.
>
> Porter's protests are getting widespread support - see the Observer
> website,
>
> Should not Porter's proposal be of special concern to Radstats - both as
> users of data from large databases and as an organization concerned with
> the privacy of individual data?
>
>
>
> Ray Thomas, Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University
>
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