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NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

theguardian.com

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Re: NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

#61

Post by Flenser »

nodata wrote: post #2

"The extracted information will contain NHS numbers, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender." Yikes! Date of birth AND postcode? Pseudoanonymous that is not.

> "The extracted information will contain NHS numbers, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender." > Yikes! Date of birth AND postcode? Pseudoanonymous that is not.

I suspect the article is sensationalising things. That information won't be passed on to anyone by HSCIC it's only used to link all the information about a patient into a single record:

"Your date of birth, full postcode, NHS Number and gender rather than your name will be used to link your records in a secure system, managed by the HSCIC. Once this information has been linked, a new record will be created. This new record will not contain information that identifies you. The type of information shared, and how it is shared, is controlled by law and strict confidentiality rules." - http://www.nhs.uk/caredata

Re: NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms

#63

Post by specialist »

Flenser wrote: post #61
nodata wrote: post #2

"The extracted information will contain NHS numbers, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender." Yikes! Date of birth AND postcode? Pseudoanonymous that is not.

> "The extracted information will contain NHS numbers, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender." > Yikes! Date of birth AND postcode? Pseudoanonymous that is not. I suspect the article is sensationalising things. That information won't be passed on to anyone by HSCIC it's only used to link all the information about a patient into a single record: "Your date of birth, full postcode, NHS Number and gender rather…

Demographic identifiers are not necessary to deanonymize data. Even if every person is simply referenced by their unique identifier (MRN, PID, whatever term is used locally), patient identity can still be inferred by medical history.

I worked in healthcare IT (electronic medical records) for a while. I sought ways to protect privacy. Technically, there is none.

Only laws can protect privacy now. Such as laws preventing sharing patient data.

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