On Sun, 06 Dec 1998 14:28:03 GMT, Dr. Paul Steventon wrote:
>The day that all UK clinicians own and keep secret their personal
>private encryption key, simply as a proper part of being registered in
>this country may soon be coming. It needs to have arrived before a
>scheme like this will be safe for the patients and the clinicians
>using it.
Not if the government has its way (which looks very likely) on key
escrew.
Private encryption keys become meaningless if every Dick, Tom and
Harriette can obtain an order to decrypt.
This is a major threat to individual privacy and the right to
confidentiality in this country. Not that privacy was that great in
the first place! In an age when we should be moving to enshrine the
citizens' privacy in law, we seem to be going the other way.
And what are we doing about it? Bugger all :-(
Ahmad
---------------------------------
Dr Ahmad Risk
Editor Health Informatics Europe
http://hi-europe.co.uk
Tel: +44 1273 321805
Fax: +44 1273 774614
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