[Nottingham] “Anonymized” data really isn’t — and here’s why not

[Jason Irwin]

On 19/01/14 21:28, Martin wrote:
> My personal selection from surfing around the web is:
Hit mainstream media now as well:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/19/nhs-patient-data-available-companies-buy

People may also find this useful:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/caredata_trifold.pdf

One thing worries me about that PDF though. It states:
"I am writing to give notice that I refuse consent for my identifiable
information"

The NHS will claim that their data does not make you identifiable and,
but of course it it does when matched against a pre-existing dataset.
The wording gives them far too much wiggle room. I think the PDF
should say:
"I am writing to give notice that I refuse consent for any information
relating to me to be used for any purpose other than providing direct
medical care."

I actually have no issue with a researcher getting my data to pull out
statistical information, so maybe add an exception in for that as well.

-- 
╔═════════════╦══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Jason Irwin ║ OpenPGP (GPG/PGP) Public Key: 0xD0C592B1 ║
║             ║ Import from hkp://subkeys.pgp.net        ║
╚═════════════╩══════════════════════════════════════════╝