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Conservative public sector policy is thoughtless Thatcherism: "Sell all the things!" (Forgive the meme)

by davedx 13y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
Well, they're already selling medical records to private firms in England. Since they got away with that, they probably just want to sell as much other data as possible. EDIT: England, not England and Wales.
- DanBC 13y ago
  No they aren't. There's a point where hyperbole becomes sensationalising, and where sensationalising becomes deceptive.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - michaelt 13y ago
    The medical records of every NHS hospital patient in the country have been sold for insurance purposes, The Telegraph can reveal. [...] a report by a major society of actuaries discloses that it was able to obtain 13 years of hospital data [...] covering all hospital in-patient stays between 1997 and 2010 to track the medical histories of patients, identified by date of birth and postcode. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10656893/Hospital-records-of-all-NHS-patients-sold-to-insurers.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10656893/Hospit... And the best part? It only cost £2,200.
    - notahacker 13y ago
      The actual report is here. http://www.sias.org.uk/data/papers/SIASDec2013Paper/DownloadPDF http://www.sias.org.uk/data/papers/SIASDec2013Paper/Download... It's reasonably obvious that inferences can be made from this that will affect private sector insurance premiums, but highly unlikely that anything they've done with the data could be linked to specific individuals, even though the original anonymisation was unlikely to have been sufficient In the interests of balance, it's worth pointing out the non-profit organization linked to the insurance sector in question specifically denies some of the claims made in the Telegraph article: http://www.actuaries.org.uk/news/press-releases/articles/telegraph-article-rebuttal http://www.actuaries.org.uk/news/press-releases/articles/tel...
      - ZenPro 13y ago
        Yet the NHS themselves confirmed that everything was true. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/10659147/Patient-records-should-not-have-been-sold-NHS-admits.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/10659147/Patient-recor...
        notahacker 13y ago
        The original Telegraph article headline was "Hospital records of all NHS patients sold to insurers" (aside from the flatly false headline, the actual content of the article is pretty accurate). The IFoA that actually bought the data and did the research pointed out that they were not an insurer, nor providing any recommendations to insurers beyond the now-publicly-available macro data I linked to. In other words, no private firms - in the insurance industry or otherwise - legally have access to any medical records as a result of this sale, other than the macro research document I linked to, which you might want to read for yourself if you're concerned about what's getting into the public domain. The link you've just posted has the NHS-linked body in question admitting "greater scrutiny should have been applied" in this instance, but actually reasserts all the points made by IFoA: they're not an insurer, it's a general study on frequencies of illnesses amongst certain demographics and there's no personally-identifiable data accessible to insurers as a result of this. The HSCIC making a hand-wavy non-apology != the NHS confirming that this is an example of a private firm they sold your medical records to
        ZenPro 13y ago
        You are right. Upon inspection the incident was far less threatening than reported. I was wrong. As an example of potential abuses by public departments selling data I think it still stands though.
      - vertex-four 13y ago
        > highly unlikely that anything they've done with the data could be linked to specific individuals, even though the original anonymisation was unlikely to have been sufficient So even if we take a professional body which represents the interests of the insurance industry at their word, we still have to trust that private companies with little or no public oversight will somehow decide to do the right thing? It's blatantly obvious that a postcode and age is enough to match a record to an individual. Why are we expected to trust private industry not to mess with our privacy?
    - DanBC 13y ago
      A one time occurance; since which the law has been chNged to make that not possible and for which people have apologised. While patient data was released (and possibly poorly anonymised) that was not "patient records" which have a defined meaning. So the very worst example of "selling off patient records" wasn't patient records, only happened once, has been acknowledged as a failure, and can't happen again because the law has been changed since.
  - ZenPro 13y ago
    Yes. Yes they are. "However, a report by a major society of actuaries discloses that it was able to obtain 13 years of hospital data – covering 47 million patients – in order to help insurance companies “refine” their premiums. The report by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries details how it was able to use NHS data covering all hospital in-patient stays between 1997 and 2010 to track the medical histories of patients, identified by date of birth and postcode. The 274-page report describes the NHS Hospital Episode Statistics as a “valuable data source in developing pricing assumptions for 'critical illness’ cover.” There is a point where your denial is farcical and where farcical is fallacious.

Conservative public sector policy is thoughtless Thatcherism: "Sell all the things!" (Forgive the meme)

by davedx 13y ago

Conservative public sector policy is thoughtless Thatcherism: "Sell all the things!" (Forgive the meme)

Well, they're already selling medical records to private firms in England. Since they got away with that, they probably just want to sell as much other data as possible. EDIT: England, not England and Wales.

DanBC 13y ago
No they aren't. There's a point where hyperbole becomes sensationalising, and where sensationalising becomes deceptive.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- michaelt 13y ago
  The medical records of every NHS hospital patient in the country have been sold for insurance purposes, The Telegraph can reveal. [...] a report by a major society of actuaries discloses that it was able to obtain 13 years of hospital data [...] covering all hospital in-patient stays between 1997 and 2010 to track the medical histories of patients, identified by date of birth and postcode. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10656893/Hospital-records-of-all-NHS-patients-sold-to-insurers.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10656893/Hospit... And the best part? It only cost £2,200.
  - notahacker 13y ago
    The actual report is here. http://www.sias.org.uk/data/papers/SIASDec2013Paper/DownloadPDF http://www.sias.org.uk/data/papers/SIASDec2013Paper/Download... It's reasonably obvious that inferences can be made from this that will affect private sector insurance premiums, but highly unlikely that anything they've done with the data could be linked to specific individuals, even though the original anonymisation was unlikely to have been sufficient In the interests of balance, it's worth pointing out the non-profit organization linked to the insurance sector in question specifically denies some of the claims made in the Telegraph article: http://www.actuaries.org.uk/news/press-releases/articles/telegraph-article-rebuttal http://www.actuaries.org.uk/news/press-releases/articles/tel...
    - ZenPro 13y ago
      Yet the NHS themselves confirmed that everything was true. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/10659147/Patient-records-should-not-have-been-sold-NHS-admits.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/10659147/Patient-recor...
      - notahacker 13y ago
        The original Telegraph article headline was "Hospital records of all NHS patients sold to insurers" (aside from the flatly false headline, the actual content of the article is pretty accurate). The IFoA that actually bought the data and did the research pointed out that they were not an insurer, nor providing any recommendations to insurers beyond the now-publicly-available macro data I linked to. In other words, no private firms - in the insurance industry or otherwise - legally have access to any medical records as a result of this sale, other than the macro research document I linked to, which you might want to read for yourself if you're concerned about what's getting into the public domain. The link you've just posted has the NHS-linked body in question admitting "greater scrutiny should have been applied" in this instance, but actually reasserts all the points made by IFoA: they're not an insurer, it's a general study on frequencies of illnesses amongst certain demographics and there's no personally-identifiable data accessible to insurers as a result of this. The HSCIC making a hand-wavy non-apology != the NHS confirming that this is an example of a private firm they sold your medical records to
        ZenPro 13y ago
        You are right. Upon inspection the incident was far less threatening than reported. I was wrong. As an example of potential abuses by public departments selling data I think it still stands though.
    - vertex-four 13y ago
      > highly unlikely that anything they've done with the data could be linked to specific individuals, even though the original anonymisation was unlikely to have been sufficient So even if we take a professional body which represents the interests of the insurance industry at their word, we still have to trust that private companies with little or no public oversight will somehow decide to do the right thing? It's blatantly obvious that a postcode and age is enough to match a record to an individual. Why are we expected to trust private industry not to mess with our privacy?
  - DanBC 13y ago
    A one time occurance; since which the law has been chNged to make that not possible and for which people have apologised. While patient data was released (and possibly poorly anonymised) that was not "patient records" which have a defined meaning. So the very worst example of "selling off patient records" wasn't patient records, only happened once, has been acknowledged as a failure, and can't happen again because the law has been changed since.
- ZenPro 13y ago
  Yes. Yes they are. "However, a report by a major society of actuaries discloses that it was able to obtain 13 years of hospital data – covering 47 million patients – in order to help insurance companies “refine” their premiums. The report by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries details how it was able to use NHS data covering all hospital in-patient stays between 1997 and 2010 to track the medical histories of patients, identified by date of birth and postcode. The 274-page report describes the NHS Hospital Episode Statistics as a “valuable data source in developing pricing assumptions for 'critical illness’ cover.” There is a point where your denial is farcical and where farcical is fallacious.