Medical Records (Confidentiality)
Debate between David Davis and George Mudie(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Importantly, the fear is not only of professional hacking, but of amateur hacking, which can break into major databases. The problem about the medical database is that someone’s medical data are almost as strong as a fingerprint. If people were looking for me, for example, I have five broken noses on my medical record, which probably reduces the numbers that they are looking at from 60 million to about 100; they could also probably work out my age, if that is removed, from when I had my diphtheria jab and various other early jabs. It is still possible to reverse engineer from so-called anonymised data. In the States, that was done with an anonymised data system—the record of the Governor of Massachusetts was picked out by an academic, to demonstrate how weak such systems are.
Mr Mudie
I read with interest about the right hon. Gentleman’s unfortunate nose. He makes an important point.
My point is that there will eventually be a breach of security. It is inevitable, given the size of the database and the information stored in it. The human cost to the patient whose identity and medical history are made public is potentially disastrous. Careers could be ended, jobs lost, insurance refused and relationships destroyed if sensitive medical facts are made public or used by private firms, other people or, indeed, the media.