Government Makes Data Sharing Proposals

张琨

Government Makes Data Sharing Proposals

The government is considering relaxing data protection laws to allow different departments to share information on members of the public.

Reported in E-Health Insider, the move would reduce the necessity of repeating the same information to numerous different government departments.

John Hutton, the secretary for work and pensions, discussed the situation on the BBC's Politics Show, saying that the government intended to research public opinion on data sharing.

"The government already stores vast amounts of data about individual citizens but actually doesn’t share it terribly intelligently across various government agencies," Mr Hutton commented.

He went on:  "We can improve the quality of public services if we are prepared to share data more intelligently."

The prime minister also dismissed claims that the government was planning a new master database, saying:   "The purpose of this is not to create a new piece of technology at all or a new database."

However, concerns have been raised about the confidentiality of patients' medical notes if the changes to the law go ahead.

Connecting for Health  18-Jan-2007