Data trawling and the digital agenda

In Brussels, Neelie Kroes, vice president of the European Commission, welcomed the support of the European Parliament for the eHealth Action Plan which addresses barriers to the full use of digital solutions in Europe`s healthcare systems. The Commission will be working towards an EU eHealth Interoperability Framework. "Plainly speaking," he said, "eHealth will only have a future in Europe if our homes, hospitals, healthcare centres and public services can connect to affordable high-speed internet connections. eHealth needs ultra-fast broadband."

 http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-12_en.htm

In the United Kingdom we learn that information from GP practices in England will begin to be extracted and sent to the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) in the spring 2014. GPs only have a few weeks to inform all their patients that confidential data from their records will be shared outside the NHS.
 

Data from care.data will be shared with commissioners, researchers and private companies in de-identified and identifiable forms. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt announced earlier this year that patients will be able to opt out of having their information extracted, but NHS England has ruled out a national publicity campaign and said the responsibility lies with individual GP practices. 

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/it/eight-weeks-to-inform-patients-their-data-is-going-to-be-harvested-gps-warned/1/20004562.article?&pageno=1&sortorder=dateadded&pagesize=20

The issue is discussed on mumsnet which shows the level of confusion there is about it. Children`s data is to be mined as well and parents need to decide on their behalf if they wish to comply or not. Once the information is obtained and placed with HSCIC there is no way to have it removed.

medConfidential explains how to opt out HERE

In Scotland mining of children`s and their families`data is being implemented through the GIRFEC approach.  See Scotland`s secret files and No2ID