Phil Booth Profile picture
Mind 'for hire'; critical friend to just causes. Currently also @medConfidential; formerly @NO2ID
Dec 29, 2022 5 tweets 6 min read
Nah. This is another puff piece on the #WaitingList pilot, details of which @NHSEngland published - without daring to mention @PalantirTech - over ten months ago...

england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp… To be clear, 30 individual NHS Trusts* are using #Palantir #Foundry to manage elective care waiting lists, not patients' entire medical histories - largely by what Ministers have called "cleansing" the data:

palantir.com/uk/healthcare/

*Though @NHSEngland won't say which ones...
Nov 13, 2022 21 tweets 27 min read
This headline 👇 will be no surprise to anyone who's been following @NHSEngland's plans (and actions) for a while.

But @JonUngoedThomas's article reveals some crucial details about what's intended for your #NHS #HealthRecords that are worth unpacking...

theguardian.com/society/2022/n… Controversial £360m NHS Eng... First, and possibly most significantly, is @NHSEngland officials' confirmation that its '#FederatedDataPlatform' will incorporate patients across England's #SharedCareRecords: Health officials confirmed ...
Nov 1, 2022 31 tweets 29 min read
So let’s talk about where things got up to with your #HealthData, before Rishi Sunak started talking about the need to generate trust in Government with “#integrity” and “#accountability”…

gov.uk/government/spe… I will unite our country, not with words, but with action.  Earlier today we got a bunch of detail out of @NHSDigital’s Board papers and services performance pack - what of that will continue post-#merger?



N.B. The chair of NHS Digital announced today’s meeting would be the last public meeting of the Board...
Nov 1, 2022 25 tweets 24 min read
While the chaos of '#AcceleratedCitizensAccess' to #GPrecords continues to unfold:



...we've come across some perturbing items on the agenda for @NHSDigital's Board meeting this afternoon 👇 which I'll pick up on in this [Thread].

nhs-prod.global.ssl.fastly.net/binaries/conte… First, beginning on page 158, are some Directions that @NHSEngland must know will be HIGHLY controversial - given they are telling @NHSDigital to use @PalantirTech's #Foundry to collect *patient level identifiable data* from hospitals... 1 Executive Summary  NHS England are directing NHS Digital t
Oct 30, 2022 5 tweets 5 min read
Hmm. Why would @ukhomeoffice choose to announce this today:

gov.uk/government/new…

...making explicit reference to "the findings from the Independent Review of #Prevent, led by William Shawcross", WITHOUT PUBLISHING THE REVIEW? It's not like publication of the #PreventReview wasn't long overdue *nearly a year ago*...

independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

From December 2021: Review of Prevent counter-e...
Oct 30, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
Oct 25, 2022 4 tweets 4 min read
HT @LisaMWatki for prompting this [Thread] 👇 on the #OurFutureHealth letter/leaflet some of you may be receiving, which appears to omit a few important details... Those of you with long memories may remember @MattHancock's "5 Million Genomes" announcement back in 2018:

gov.uk/government/new…

So now you know who (one of) the "other partners" is... This will help support Matt Hancock’s wider ambition to se
Oct 25, 2022 10 tweets 15 min read
@LisaMWatki That @ukfuturehealth somewhat 'buries the lede' on its intention to construct a giant £212 million 👇 #DNA / #genomic database in its patient literature is somewhat concerning...

find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/019818-… II.1.4) Short description  The scope of the procurement is r @LisaMWatki @ukfuturehealth ...not to mention the £62.5 million+ they'll be spending taking people's #bloods, etc.:

find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/005068-… A service provider(s) will be responsible for elements of iniv. Responsible for legal and compliance issues related to p
Oct 24, 2022 10 tweets 10 min read
Those of you who know my work on #privacy, #identity, and #HumanRights in #data these past 18 years - mostly through @NO2ID & @medConfidential, and in other areas besides - won't be surprised at my involvement in @WEDF_foundation.

This [Thread] is an invitation to join us... ...and help define what I believe is one of the most crucial discussions of our time; on the #personal, #civil, #political and #planetary consequences of the #world(s) we are building - and the #values we want to underpin them. Image
Oct 23, 2022 7 tweets 3 min read
"Johnson says he will not run in Tory leadership race"

bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-p… Johnson says he will not ru... #Timing

web.archive.org/web/2022102320… Get ready for Boris 2.0, th...
Sep 22, 2022 11 tweets 14 min read
OK, let's take look at @RoyalMail #Health (no @Twitter handle as yet):

royalmail.com/health

It's apparently "a new #business division working across the #healthcare industry, including local #pharmacies"... Image ...though its main partners at this point appear to be @Pharmacy2U - of which more later - and "exciting new service" #Charac, an app & #SaaS platform which advertises on @facebook, @instagram and @LinkedIn but again doesn't (yet) have a @Twitter handle:

charac.co.uk Image
Aug 18, 2022 18 tweets 26 min read
Prompted by @LynnFOI, a [Thread] on the #NHSTrusts that cut #commercial deals to #copy their patients' data* to (formerly) Lord Drayson's now-delisted "AI" company, @SensyneHealth

First up, it's...

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*More info on the nature of the data they sold here:

Lord Drayson and his wife have a 22.8 per cent stake in the 1) @OUHospitals (Oxford University Hospitals) took £5 million in @SensyneHealth shares for its patients' data in July 2017:

sensynehealth.com/newsroom/drays…

It LOST £9.2 million on the value of those shares, HAS copied patients' data, and HAS NOT terminated its contract with #Sensyne...
Aug 17, 2022 7 tweets 10 min read
Bad enough that @SensyneHealth has cost NHS Trusts nearly £15 million - Lord Drayson's claim to be 'giving something back to the NHS' lies in tatters - but what people should *really* be asking about is the MILLIONS of #patients' data the company claims to be processing... ...because, as our letter to the Trusts in April pointed out, at least some of their patients' data that they handed over is #linkable #pseudonymised data - i.e. it is #identifiable, thus #PersonalData in UK law:

medconfidential.org/wp-content/upl… Pseudonymised Data  On the matter of the data itself, whethe
Aug 17, 2022 7 tweets 8 min read
Hmm. #DisasterSpam or essential #PublicService? Time will tell.

Can't help but wonder, though, if this announcement hasn't buried the lede... Changes to the Civil Contingencies Secretariat - the Cabinet ..."collecting and analysing live data" on a #permanent basis, in a '#CivilContingencies' context, sounds like something the public should be told more about!

Not unrelatedly, and while there's been a lot of focus on @PalantirTech's #NHS contracts, have you tried searching...
Aug 16, 2022 6 tweets 10 min read
REMEMBER THIS 👇 in upcoming debates, if YOUR representative says words to the effect of: "Oh no, we're not trying to destroy #HumanRights. We agree Human Rights are important - honest, guv! - we just don't like the UK #HumanRightsAct and/or the #EuropeanConvention (#ECHR)"... Such claims are DEMONSTRABLY BULLSHIT if they come from the mouth of *anyone* who supports the position @CPhilpOfficial has espoused, which the @Telegraph has splashed on its front page...
Jun 22, 2022 8 tweets 9 min read
Umm. Hasn't anyone at @MoJGovUK told @DominicRaab that a "Bill of Rights Bill" won't enter the statute books as a #BillOfRights (if passed) but only as a Bill of Rights *Act*?

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ We still have to wait for the Bill to be published, of course - but the petty press release:

gov.uk/government/new…

makes it clear this isn't a #BillOfRights; it's not even a #BillOfGoods - it's a Bill of #Bads and #Wrongs that starts off poorly, and then gets even worse...
Jun 21, 2022 4 tweets 6 min read
Take 15 mins. Watch this video. It's more important to you than you know.

This is what China is doing, but Western governments are on exactly the same path #technologically; they just have a different set of #rationalisations.

The #DatabaseState isn't coming. It's already here. It doesn't matter if your Government's #justification is #innovation ("AI is cool!"), #PublicSafety ("Think of the kids!"), or #efficiency ("People are expensive, let's use algorithms instead") - installing the #tools of #totalitarianism only ends up in one place.

It was true...
Jun 19, 2022 11 tweets 10 min read
What I find as interesting about this chart as its contents is the label at the top: "#LIBERAL WOMEN"

Labour may in part* be more 'liberal' than the current Conservative party, but it is not a Liberal party...

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*It still has its more authoritarian, "law'n'order!" tendencies. Image ...indeed, the chart itself 👇 suggests that "the women of Wakefield" support the Liberal Democrats LESS than the men.

This rather American(?) conflation of "left" and "liberal" in both language and assumption is a form of #CategoryError - in large part due to the insistence... Image
May 6, 2022 24 tweets 25 min read
I see #NHSEx has published the slides from its @HDR_UK “Data Access & Discovery” event, charmingly subtitled “A Forest Through the TREs” - on YouTube, if you want to listen:



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*I thought the phrase was “cannot see the forest for the TREs”, but hey... Let’s take a look:

hdruk.ac.uk/wp-content/upl…

One reason we use the category term #TRE to refer to Trusted Research (or any other use) Environments that meet the #FiveSafes is that everyone wants to call their own TRE something different, so no-one really knows what they mean...
May 4, 2022 8 tweets 9 min read
Appalling bit of subediting(?) but the article itself lays out both the history and US context of #RoeVsWade and the consequences of overturning it with rather more nuance:

thetimes.co.uk/article/the-ti… The Times view on US abortion law and overturning Roe v Wade The "right approach" the writer appears to support 👇 is the codification of the #RightToChoose into federal #law - which should have happened decades ago. The major issue being the parlous state of US politics... What it should also do is push the issue to the top of the p
Apr 7, 2022 159 tweets 134 min read
Finally, the #GoldacreReview is published! (During Parliamentary Easter holidays, mid-ping-pong on the #HealthAndCareBill...)

It's 221 pages - each PDF page is a double page spread - so this could be a lo-o-o-ong [Thread].

Here goes... First point to note, in the Terms of Reference (p5), is that this is about "access to #NHSdata by #researchers, #commissioners, and #innovators" - i.e. #Planning and #CommercialReUse - so it is directly relevant to the operation of millions of people's #NationalDataOptOuts... Terms of reference for the review  1. How do we facilitate a