We’ll have more on implementation of the hospital data opt-outs when the dust has settled after the referendum.

“Intelligent Transparency”

According to a letter from a Minister, “Intelligent Transparency” is the new goal. We hope that all Department of Health decisions will prove “intelligent” from a patient view, and not just the political priorities of their desk in Whitehall.

Will transparency extend to telling you how your data has been used?  Or is that the sort of intelligence they don’t want you to have?

Tech startups are no magic bullet

We’re waiting for a response from the Regulators about DeepMind’s project at the Royal Free Hospital Trust. Whatever they say, we note that Google has now made public commitments to move towards the transparency expected of them. Regulators are still investigating, and given the contradictory statements, it may take some time.

We look forward to seeing what they will tell the public about their experiments to replace doctors.

What can you do: The Hospital Episode Statistics consultation

The Hospital Episode Statistics cover data from the nation’s hospitals for over 25 years. The HSCIC is looking for everyone’s views on privacy in the data. We’ll have a long response in a few weeks, but you can quickly complete their survey (or just email enquiries@hscic.gov.uk with a subject of “HES PIA consultation”). You don’t need to answer all the questions – you can just say why it matters to you that your privacy and opt out applies to hospital data.