The Government and your personal info

[TheOstrich]

There is now a quiet movement underway to allow the Inland Revenue to release (or rather sell) "anonymised records" to third parties. In other words, your tax records.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... ayers-data

You may recall I (and many others!) railed over this when it was mooted by the NHS with your medical records. It was obvious that the information being given out could identity individuals, despite what the NHS said. As a result, the "Care" scheme was put back six months - but it hasn't gone away. I wrote to my GP surgery asking them to note I was opting out, and true to form, they failed to reply. We have also personally had data protection issues with that surgery about release of information to Lloydspharmacy without our permission.

From the article:

The government has strict rules about what can be released outside HMRC, with a near total ban on data sharing unless it is beneficial for the organisation's internal work. But despite the restrictions, HMRC has quietly launched a pilot programme that has released data about VAT registration for research purposes to three private credit ratings agencies: Experian, Equifax and Dun & Bradstreet.

To comply with the law, the private rating agencies, which determine credit scores for millions of people and businesses, have been contracted to act on behalf of HMRC and are "therefore treated as part of the department" – giving them access to tax data about businesses that would otherwise be confidential.

Please note the blue wording. That is exactly what happened to me with the NHS a few years back. In a nutshell, they wrote to me and said we're giving your diabetic retinal details to a third party outside the NHS who arranges admin for them. Did I object? I wrote back, you betcha, I refuse permission.

A year later, they wrote to me again and said hard cheese, we're over-riding your objection whether you like it or not, because that third party is now being treated as part of the department.

And people wonder why Ostriches have no trust in the NHS or the Government .....

[cromwell]

The government has strict rules

Which they immediately abandon when anyone bungs them a few quid.

It was always going to be this way; "Sharing that data... strictly controlled third parties... watchdog..... defraying the cost to hard pressed taxpayers... " etc etc.

It was so predictable you could set it to music and bloody sing it...

[Workingman]

I wonder how many of us thought that the Data Protection Act, 1998. was there to protect our data. I bet many of us have had it quoted to us by some Jobsworth when we we wanted to get some information, even information about ourselves. Yet it appears that the government, the one collecting my/our information, has no qualms about giving it out to all and sundry - so long as they pay. If these outsiders can then become "part of the department" it is job done, no problem.

What worries me about the HMRC scheme is the selection of the companies chosen to be curators of our data: Experian, Equifax and Dun & Bradstreet. They are not exactly squeaky clean when it comes to the way they operate and have been criticised for their attitude when things go wrong, and the charges they make to correct those mistakes.

Whether we like it or not we are getting a form of ID card by the back door, with everybody but the rightful owner of the data having total access to it through various databases.

I fully expect that in the near future a Department for Data - at Ministerial level - to be created with all these databases becoming "part of the department".

[cromwell]

The only saving grace may be that the data quality is so bad they end up with 40 million duplicate records...