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UK: National Health Database: National Health Warning over privacy of 50m patient files

01 November 2006

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"National Health Warning over privacy of 50m patient files - Call for boycott of medical database accessible by up to 250,000 NHS staff" (Guardian, link)

"From cradle to grave, your files available to a cast of thousands" (Guardian, link)

"'A national database is not essential' What health professionals say about the new NHS database" (Guardian, link)

"What can patients do?" (Guardian, link)

UK: DNA database: The Independent reports: Growing DNA database 'turning Britain into a nation of suspects' and DNA pioneer's civil rights fears (BBC, link): DNA fingerprinting inventor Prof Jeffreys told BBC Radio Four's Today programme:

"The real concern I have in the UK is what I see as a sort of 'mission creep'. "When the DNA database was initially established, it was to database DNA from criminals so if they re-offended, they could be picked up.

"Now hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent people are now populating that database, people who have come to the police's attention, for example by being charged with a crime and subsequently released."

He went to say that the samples were "skewed socio-economically and ethnically", adding: "My view is that that is discriminatory."

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