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

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 basics25 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?

Random drug test on children?

This is a growing problem in the UK. It seems that some parents have so much distruss in thei children they like the idea of their children being forced to have random drug test. Schools seem to love the idea too, but concidering they liked the idea of introducing ‘virtual strip searches’ in schools, the fact they demand children take drug test is no surprise. The problem?

First of all the drug test (which is classed as a medical) is done in front of the rest of class by taking a check swab which is tested there and then (no privacy about the results).

It creates distrust. Teachers and parents are in effect telling their children they don’t trust them whilst the teachers and parents dont have to be tested.

They are not as reliable as they are promoted. At one school 2 pupils had a false positive, one of them failed because the toothpaste she used was confused with crystal meth.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=439743&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true#StartComments

The testing breaches medical ethics as pupils are being forced to have a medical exam (they have no way of saying no without being accused of being a drug user by the ‘nothing to hide nothing to fear’ crap brigade). The pupils that failed were model pupils, which made the school think something was wrong. I very much doubt the school would have thought that if the pupils were ‘trouble’ pupils. Personally, I think if a trouble pupil gets a positive, they will be treated very differently by the school. But then again, I could be wrong. I doubt I am wrong, but never say never. Teachers are now even allowed to search pupils, although it should be stressed that this search is no way near as bad as they have in the USA where schools are allowed to strip-search children (http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/092006search.cfm). There has already been a few instances of this happening even before this became law (might want to think twice about going to the States to stay if you have children).Then again, it could be worse. You could be going through Israel where morals and ethics dont seem to apply and security staff are allowed to abuse men, woman and children ( http://www.counterpunch.org/weir03152007.html). Personally I think it is sick that such abusers are allowed anywhere near adults let alone near children. I wonder if Israel would be offended if this was happening to Jewish children (Jewish children are exempt from being abused by the security services)? I’m not saying it should, It should not happen to anyone and I don’t have a problem with saying anyone that thinks this is OK, is sick in the head. It does raise the question, are the security services only doing this to humiliate men, woman and children in the hope they don’t return?

NHS database

There is so much info about this, it would be easier to check out the link bellow. If you are wondering who I am, I post under the name 'medical privacy'. If you click on any of my post, you can get a list of all the comments I have made about the 'data rape' the NHS are planning and a few other things.

http://forum.no2id.net/viewforum.php?f=58&sid=5adbb0b11b37864619586a8d52d0abb1

Emergency Care Summary

This is something that has been adapted in Scotland, but it seems not all patients are aware of it or who will have access to the information. Just so that I can put my mind to rest, here are the facts about it.

1) All prescriptions are uploaded and although only accessible for 42 days, it is kept for good (nobody seems to want to say why they keep it). These prescriptions include Viagra, Ant-depressants and medications used in an abortion.

2) The record is not only available to doctors and nurses treating you. It is also available to the admin staff, such as the receptionist. This means that if you are not willing to tell the lass on reception you are on Viagra, you should not allow her to access the record.

3) When I contacted NHS Grampian about the dangers of not allowing the receptionist access to the record, they could not provide any evidence to support the claim that saying no would in anyway endanger your life.

4) When a GP practice contacted their patients about the upload, 19% of patients opted out of it. This is about 1,500 times the opt-out received from the letter drop that NHSScotland did. As far as I know, no other GP practice has bothered to write to their patients about it and GPs refuse to tell patients who are sitting in front of them, that their medical info is shared nationally even though it would only take seconds to do so. The NHS refuses to say why GPs refuse to actively inform patients about the data sharing even though evidence suggest patients are not aware of the sharing which means the GPs are in effect in breach of the GMC/NHS codes of practice.

Patient rights

As a patient you have the following rights (I have put sources next to most and willing to back the following information up). I will be posting more about this.

1) You can ask for a doctor of the same gender for intimate examinations (source, Strawberry Gardens Medical practice, Morecambe). Even hospitals will allow this but this might not always be possible as it depends on how many doctors they have and I think it would depend on who asked, for example a Childs need might come first, something I can understand. If that is not possible at your GP practice, go to another practice and tell them you are in need of immediate medical attention and due to the nature only willing to see a male/female GP (you do not need to tell them what it is for). In some cases some patients might prefer a doctor of the opposite gender. You should also be asked if you want a chaperone to be present and they should be of the same gender as you (as far as I am aware, you should not be in view of them).

2) You can refuse to have a trainee present. Might sound obvious, but this was not always followed in the past, especially by some teaching hospitals. In the words of a friend of mine “they viewed those patients as a piece of meat on a slab”

3) You can refuse to allow data to be shared with admin staff and others. “You must respect the wishes of any patient who objects to particular information being shared with others providing care, except where this would put others at risk of death or serious harm.” Source, GMC. This is also seems to be backed up by the NHS code of practice 2003 and the BMA. It is also something the Clinical Governance Support Practitioner NHS Grampian (although he seems to have turned a blind eye to the fact that this is happening and practices in the Grampian area). You can also have clinical data withheld from other doctors/nurses unless it would put others at serious risk. For example if you have been raped/abused, you do not need to let every doctor you see know if that helps you cope.

4) You can refuse medical treatment. This can be overridden if you are not deemed to me mentally competent. This has been controversial in the past.

Tam Fry, the chairman of the Child Growth Foundation seemed to be planning on forcing children to give data for the ‘fat stats’ exercise the government wanted when he stated “The Social Care Act says that when there is an urgent need for medical information it can override an individual’s right to refuse.” (The Times, 21/12/06, p.24). In the future they will most likely get this info from their National Care Records without consent

Employer access to medical information

So what can employers ask you? Quite a lot actually!

For example I have had questionnaires that ask (I am working on a way of getting a sample form online) if you have ever had emotional problems, had diarrhoea, vomiting, dysentery, food poising and any other medical problems. In other words if you have seen a GP/nurse for something, you must declare it directly to the employer and anyone else that handles the form. You also have to supply ‘details’ for each thing. Even if the employer does not misuse the above info (we all know this happens) and does not tell anyone (again we all know this happens), I for one think asking those sorts of questions is bang out of order and the CO-OP should not be asking them.

What happens after you start? Well think about it. If you had to declare this sort of info before starting, they will most likely want to know it after you start, so no way to get help with emotional problems or anything else without telling the boss. I for one think that is bang out of order. I am all for employers knowing if you are capable of doing the job, but that in no way should allow them to know our medical info. The Job? Stacking shelves and serving customers at a shop in Bucksburn area of Aberdeen.. Why would that thrush, UTI or bleeding from your rectum prevent you from doing the job?

Some employers can also ask you to have a complete medical examination, such a the ones BUPA offers for employee screening. With that in mind, you might want to ask for doctor of the same gender if you are being asked to have a medical for an employer, just in case in involves anything more than very basic stuff (you are allowed a GP of the same gender for intimate examinations even if it is not for a job). If your not bothered then that is is up to you.

The UK health profession refuse to do anything to stop this sort of thing and last time I contacted the MSP for my area (an SNP guy in Aberdeen) he seemed far from interested in stopping it, he even seemed to think it was a good idea for employers to invade our privacy.

admin staff and medical records

When you tell your doctor/consultant something, sometimes it is just between the 2 of you, but that is not always the case. It depends on what practice you go to and even between individual doctors/consultants.

For example some doctors make their own notes, while others simply tell one of the clerical staff so they can put it in your notes. That means if you were to see 2 different doctors for something, the people that know will vary. This means in some cases only the GP will know about that UTI, thrush or sexual problem, in other cases, the info will be shared. Even if they do not share it straight away, a lot of practice will allow admin staff full access to records in order to get information. For example if they wish to do a clinical audit, then admin staff will be allowed access to the clinical data where the patient can be identified or where they can guess who it belongs to. Nobody, not even NHS Grampian seems to be able to say admin staff need to know you have been raped/abused, had sexual problems, emotional problems, chest infection or a bad case of thrush. They are also not capable of saying why a receptionist needs to have access to the Emergency Care Summary

Researchers and medical records

Your data might be getting shared for research without your consent. This is very complicated. If you have had treatment you should contact the data controller to ask if it has been shared. Even this might not be straight forward as they may be allowed to say no even if it has if they claim saying yes would cause you or others harm. Identifiable data from GUM clinics has already been shared under Section Sixty of the Health and Social Care Act 2001. There are even laws that allow the doctor to be fined £5000.00 if they respect your rights to privacy and refuse to share your clinical data! There are an ever-increasing number of reasons for sharing our data and a growing number wanting access (source Health Care Standards Unit).

According to the Patient Information Advisory Group, Section Sixty can not be used if you have said no (but remember there are other laws that will allow them access even where you have said no and trying to get this refusal put in your records is extremely difficult. Over the last 20+ years I have said no to sharing several times but it never seemed to find it’s way into my records and some of those that were aware of it withdrew medical treatment). There is also a lot of controversy about why cancer researchers in the UK are allowed access to identifiable medical data when others such as the Germans are capable of doing research without it. That hardly makes it a “need to know” basis for sharing, yet it gets done. There is also nothing stopping them from asking the patient and allowing the patient to see the info before it is sent. This would help the patient know what is being shared and allows them to check it to make sure what they said was recorded accurately. It would also give them the chance to supply data they did not think was important). It seems however, that researchers in the UK do not like this and want to get the data regardless of what the patient thinks/says. PIAG have even gone as far as to say it would be acceptable for identifiable data to be released about patients in the final stages of their terminal condition without their consent. Some people seem to think that it is insensitive to ask but OK to steal it behind the patients back and just hope they do not find out. If that is not a betrayal, then what is? It seems a case of what they do not know, will not hurt them, until they find out that is.

Stripped when walking down the street?

This is a report from the BBC about ‘virtual stipsearches’ that wer/are being considerd by the Home Office. The idea is to put them on things like lamp post, that way if you want to ‘virtualy strip search’ people, you can do so without them knowing.Whats the problem with this? The images are so detailed it is like someone taking a naked photo of you. These sort of images are already created in air-ports and some train stations, the only difference being they need to ask you first and you can take the far less intrusive pat down

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6309917.stm