No, the issue is that NHS Digital, and its predecessors are utterly stupid when it comes to "anonymous" firstly they sold everyone to a number of insurance com

No, the issue is that NHS Digital, and its predecessors are utterly stupid when it comes to "anonymous" firstly they sold everyone to a number of insurance companies. Something that as far as I can tell is illegal https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10656893/Hospital-records-of-all-NHS-patients-sold-to-insurers.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10656893/Hospit... secondly NHS digital created a schema for sharing records with researcher. Supposedly it was anonymous, however it had date of birth, sex and postcode (a post code is about 80 houses) plus the address of every interaction with the NHS. The only thing that was missing was the name. But cross referencing date of birth, gender and postcode with the electoral register give you a name in 99% of cases. Also, knowing a few of the people who work _for_ NHS digital, and their involvement of leaking things to the press for personal gain, I have no faith in their moral compass.