This article first appeared on the SumOfUs website
Amazing! Already, over 143,822 of us have taken action calling on Jeremy Hunt and the NHS to think again on selling our private medical data. Momentum to stop the sale of our personal information is building!
The NHS is about to sell your private medical information to major corporations — unless we stop it first.
Tell the NHS to respect our privacy and stop plans to let insurance and drug companies buy our information.
Your medical records are about to be sold to the highest bidder.
Starting this year, private companies will be able to buy information on us from the NHS’s new universal patient database — including everything from mental health conditions, sexually transmitted infections and diseases like cancer — all linked to your postcode, gender and ethnicity.
We’ve all been opted into the scheme by the government without our knowledge. And the clock is ticking — the government has said they will upload our data in a matter of just a few weeks. If we’re going to stop this, we have to act now.
Tell Jeremy Hunt and the NHS not to sell information in our medical records.
It doesn’t really get more personal than what you discuss with your doctor. They know the most personal things about us — like whether we’ve ever been depressed, had an embarrassing infection or struggled with drug & alcohol problems.
The government claims that individuals won’t be able to be identified. However, many experts have warned that under the current plans, we could easily be singled out through simple cross-referencing of other databases — especially if you have a rare or unusual condition. Imagine your employer finding that you might have had an abortion when you were a teenager. Or your insurance company finding out you are HIV positive. The consequences for us as individuals could be huge.
We know that when we act together, we can bring about real change. When we fought to get High Street names like River Island and Edinburgh Woollen Mill to sign up to protect Bangladeshi factory workers, we won! Now we need to step up to defend something precious — our right to privacy.
Note: from Kenneth Ingram, please tell your Doctor now if you want to opt out.
