CCTV in public loos

There I was reading my own page, when I noticed I forgot to mention Virgin Trains spying on men in the loo. If you go into the male toilets in Wolverhampton train station you will notice there is CCTV between the washing basins and the urinals. Apparently this is for ’security’ reasons and to stop people vandalising the urinals or using drugs. The fact that drug users are just as likely to go to the cubical and shoot up, seems to have been ignored by good old Virgin. As for the urnial excuse. How can they tell who did what unless they are looking at the urinal and the lad peeing? Hence my claim that Virgin trains (the people who run the station) are spying on men in the loo.To this serious issue, it has to be asked if it is a good idea to get children to think it is perfectly OK to pee in front of a camera? I don’t and I think anyone that spies on the inside of a loo is rather sick in the head and should concentrate on porn rather than trying to brainwash the public into thinking it is OK to be spied on EVERYWHERE we go 

Who knows who your calling?

I need to get on with some course work, but just before I do, thought I’d do a quicky on this privacy issue as it is very important. Records of who we call or text (and where from if using a mobile, this allows them to track your movements, handy if you want to catch people using a phone when driving) are to be kept for at least 1 year (came into effect on 1st October 2007). These records can include ’sensitive’ information, such as if you called Childline, Samaritans (when I contacted them about this, they could not care less about the fact so many people can find out-list bellow) and it seems even calling crimes stoppers will be recorded and made available to others. If you call people that provide ‘confidential’ help for rape/abuse, emotional problems, dug/alcohol addictions, battered partner or anything else, that too will be kept. So will calls to your doctors, GUM clinics and sex therapist if you have one. The content of such things will not be recorded, but the fact we called a sex therapist means you will in effect be telling everyone you have a sexual problem. Who will have access to this? How long have you got? It’s a big list (795 public bodies and quangos all with varying degree of access). I would love to give the complete list but I can’t find a copy BUT here are some of them: Police, Security services, 475 local councils, Food Standards Agency, Department of Health, Immigration Service, Gaming Board, Charity Commission, Royal Navy Regulating Branch, Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary, Department of Trade and Industry, NHS Trusts, Ambulance Service, Fire Service, Department of Transport and the Department for the Environment.I wonder if NHRC are on the list. ThinkPolice will need approval of a superintendent or inspector (like they will say no!). Council officials will only need permission from the authority’s assistant chief officer. Thousands of staff in other agencies will need to get approval from a senior official. In other words, our telephone privacy is screwed! There is no mention of court orders/warrants and the government decided to not consult on this in parliament (they did not need to, they can alter some laws anytime they feel like it).Think you have nothing to worry about? Last year the voluntary arrangement that was in place untill this law allowed 439,000 searches of phone recordsFrom 2008 (not sure of exact date) the same will apply to websites we access and who we email.More info about it can be found at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=484752&in_page_id=1770&ct=5 

Some examples

Below are just 5 examples of moral/ethical questions that need to be asked about medical privacy.

I decided to do this as a separate thing so that people who have an interest in such things, can see some basic questions that I have.

There are loads of examples, including the example of identifiable data being released from GUM clinics in England without patient consent that I could have put in, but I thought it best to start with the basics

It is because of these examples and the fact most patients are not aware of what is being shared (one patient pointed out that talking to a doctor was like talking to priest) that I get my back up. Informing patients does not take long. It can be as simple as printing off what the receptionist can see and showing that to the patient. Some patients might not be that bothered, but others would be. Some patients might not be that bothered about who sees their referral letter, test results for things like STDs/STIs (cervical smear test results are now held on one national database in Scotland without the informed consent of patients and despite the fact this database is not as secure as it should be) or who knows that they are on Viagra but others would be. It takes seconds to tell a patient that you dictate to a secretary who will know who you are and what is wrong with you, yet doctors and nurses seem to hate the idea of telling patients the truth. They give the impression that they keep info private, yet this is far from reality. Telling your doctor/nurse or any other health worker is far from ‘confidential’. 

Example 1

A girl becomes sexually active but does not want anyone other that her GP knowing. In most practices, that would not be allowed. The girl then become pregnant but wants a termination. She is now faced with 3 choices.
1) Tell the GP and allow her (or him if they chose not to see a female doctor) to share the data.
2) Try and force a miscarriage and not report it.
3) Go to a back street abortionist which may not be done safely and she runs the risk of being abused.
I for one think the latter 2 choices are dangerous and I find it appalling that the health profession seem to think these are 2 viable options.

Illegal abortions still take place in the UK. What has to be asked, yet the health profession refuse to ask, is, are illegal abortions taking place in the UK because the health profession refuse to allow access for legal abortions unless the woman agrees to inform others? If the answer is yes, then the health profession can/should be held responsible for illegal abortions. In other wards, the buck stops with the health profession. 

Example 2

Parents decide to take out insurance, including insurance for their children. As part of the application the applicants must disclose medical data. One of the children says no and as a result the application is refused. The parents then use presure on the child and the child decides to say yes. Is that consenual? I don’t think it is. Whilst it is unlikely that a 4 year old will be able to make a informed choice, what about a 14 year old? 14 year olds can make life changing choices, so why can they be forced to realease data? If there is something they don’t want their parents or others to know, then they don’t have much chance of keeping it from them and should they be forced to tell others? Don’t chiildren have rights?If the parents want to make a claim for an injury but the child refuses to allow the GP to release some info and again parents apply pressure getting the child to change their minds and say yes, is that consenual?What if it was a case of a man/womans partner wanting the other to share data? Saying no to this could cause a breakdown in the relationship, which could involve children. Is that consensual?

What about children being lead to think that telling insurance compaines and evrybody else, such as employers is normal because that is what they have been lead to belive. I know this is a phylisophical question, but it is something that I have felt needs to be considered by doctors as they are often the only people standing in the way of people gaing access to our records (although with the new natuional databse, something that is to be removed with the introduction of a national database (it is interesteing to note that children seem to have been excluded from the national databases that ministers and doctors cliam will save lives and saying no will cause harm to pateints).

Example 3

A man is arrested for sexual abusing children, or ay other crime. The man is arrested and then questioned at which time he admits the crime. The only evidence the police have is the mans confession. The man is then charged and brought before the courts. At this point it is discovered that the man had not been read his rights after being arrested and had not been told he was under caution. He had also been lead to believe that what he had said before being arrested would ‘go no further’. Because his rights were breached, what he had said in the past could not be used as evidence, he then walks free.A patient. tells a doctor/nurse something under the impression that nobody else will know and unaware of the fact that the data would be used by others, such as for insurance or to determine if the idividual broke the law. The patient then finds out data latter date about this and the doctor then simply tells the patient this is the case and the patient can do nothing to stop it. If that means the patients would not have disclosed data or be examined, then that is tough luck, the patient has fewer rights than the criminal. If the patient happened to be a victim of the above crime and had sought help due to this, then that raises one big question. Why is it the patient has less rights? Their attacker walks free for not being told the truth, the patient simply has this back dated to allow data to be shared and accessed.I for one find that imoral, yet it gets done almost every day in the health profession.

Example 4

If I was to lead someone to believe that I was a doctor so that I could carry out an intimate examination on them, would it be an assault/ sexual assualt even if they agree to me touching them? I would say yes.If a patient was to allow a doctor to carry out an intimate examination because of they thought tht only the GP would know why they were there and what was wrong with them but the info was then known by others (ether from reading the info or from thr doctor dictating the info to them), would that be a assault/sexual assualt? Again I would say yes.A lie to touch is still alie no matter what your profession. This sort of assualt goes on almost everyday in the health profession, yet it goes un-punished

Example 5

If someone was to put a gun to someones head and demand sex, would that be rape? I think it would be even if the victim was to say yes, as saying no could result in their harm. If the gun was hidden away, but the patient knew it was there, would that still be rape? I would say yes. This is an implied threat by the attacker.Currently, in most practices, unless a patient agrees to data sharing (I have been in practices, such as Gilbert Road in Bucksburn, Aberdeen) where all doctors/nurses have full access to GP files, such as asthma clincs knowing if patients have ever been raped and in these pracices even admin staff are allowed to know which patient is on Viagra or been abused etc), the patient is not allowed access to health care even where this causes discomfort or even their death unless they ‘consent’ to data sharing. With the threat of discomfort or even death for saying no (said or implied), can the patient saying yes be of their own freewill? I for one say no as to be consentioanl you must be able to say no without it causing any side effects, and to me discomfort/death is a side effect. NHS Grampian and other NHS trust (even government ministers) seem to view the patients discomfort/death as a viable option for the patient.

Opps, have we lost even more CDs?

I must be the last privacy campaigner on the planet to comment on the HMRC screw ups. Here are the basics
25 million records along with names, address, DOB, partner details (if they have a partner that is) and Bank Info has gone missing (a junior official is being used as a scape goat while the people at the top get away with it. See, It’s not just the Met Office that keep the incompetent as senior levels).
In August a laptop that contained sensitive financial details of about 400 people with ISAs was stolen after being left in a car (not sure if that was HMRC).
In May HMRC posted details of the family tax credits of 42,000 families to other people after an apparent “printer error” (in other words a twit told the printer to do it wrong!).
A CD-Rom that contained information on 15,000 Standard Life customers had been lost (a pension thing, I think).

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/consumer_affairs/article2917650.ece 

Is this the end of the list? Probably not, yet for some reason they are still going ahead with the National Identification Register (the database behind ID cards), NHS database, child index……..Should we be worried? Hmmm, let me think on that one…….. 

Supermarket GPs

I think (could be wrong on this) the idea was to allocate about £225 million over 5 years to 30 deprived areas (deprived as in crap access to health care). The fact that better, more accessable services could be provided by taking on part time GPs and nurses to work evenings and weekends seems to be getting ignored.

Personaly I think the gov are only doing this to try justify the NHS database. Access to health care at weekends etc in the UK already sucks big time and this is just another example of the gove doing a PR thing (sounds better than it realy is).Do you realy want the likes of Boots and ASDA having your medical records? Do you think it’s a good idea to encourage sick people to go to supermarkets?