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Responding to revelations about the disgraceful trade in sensitive health information, medConfidential has called for all personal health details to be treated as ‘classified when complete’.
Exemptions in the Data Protection Act are not only exploited by unscrupulous traders; some are routinely used by large commercial organisations and public bodies to legitimise the “sharing” and “re-use” of health information.
Despite promises made by Ministers last year following the care.data fiasco and the exposure of the legalised sale of NHS patients’ medical information for “commercial re-use”, changes to the law remain uncommenced. Indeed, the amended definition of legitimate use – “for the promotion of health” – still permits sale to “information intermediaries” and use by pharmaceutical marketers and other commercial interests.
While medConfidential supports, and last year called for criminal sanctions against those who abuse or misuse people’s health information, the threat of harsher punishment for a few ‘bad apples’ will not address the toxic presumption, perpetuated by Government policy, that people’s most sensitive personal details are tradable assets.
Phil Booth, coordinator of medConfidential, said:
“For all its fine words, this last government added no real protection for medical records – its political promises came to nothing. To stamp out this toxic trade, politicians must take decisive action and guarantee that all medical reports and data are legally defined as classified.
There’s no reason your family’s health details should be treated as any less sensitive than a police witness statement or George Osborne’s lunch order, for that matter.Only when medical records are properly protected in law, and people are told everywhere they’re sent, can we truly trust our most sensitive information will be kept confidential.”
Source: medConfidential
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