Was sufficiently intrigued by this to go and read it online. For anyone who is interested the link to the article is at:
http://www.computerweekly.co.uk/Articles/2005/09/06/211595/EUprivacylawposescompliancechallengeforIT%2cwarnsGartner.htm#ContentContinues
Frankly I think this is a lot of old baloney. I think they underestimate the seriousness the NHS places on patient confidentiality for a start. At the very least, "reconstructing" individual elements of data would inevitably be based on assumptions which could not be confirmed......
-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tim Trent
Sent: 06 September 2005 11:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [data-protection] Fulfilling FoIA can break DPA
An article in Computer Weekly promoting Gartner's IT Security Summit has an interesting quite from Jay Heiser, a VP in their research team. A précis is that multiple FOIA request fulfilments could well give sufficient information to break the DPA, even though each individual fulfilment does not of itself break it.
The article speaks of combining the data released in each FoIA fulfilment to create a picture bigger than the sum of he individual elements and thus "break the Data Privacy Directive".
Whether editing has removed the all important element about creating a dataset capable of identifying a living individual is unclear.
The article also speaks of using some form of inference engine (my words) being able to reconstruct personal data form anonymised patient records where the personal data has been scrubbed away.
Whether this risk is real or whether they are flying a kite for the conference is open to discussion I think.
Tim Trent - Consultant
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