A report published today by the Manifesto Club [1] finds that adults in their late 20s and 30s are being hassled by constant ID checks — and that new rules due to come into force this October will make the problem worse. NO2ID[2] says the report shows that the ‘papers please’ mentality is out of control, and the scrapping of ID cards has not led to any slackening of ID culture.

NO2ID [2] joins the authors of the report in calling for a more common sense approach to proof of age, an points out that proof of age does not logically require ID at all. Clauses in the Licensing Act 2005 have forced retailers to take a paranoid approach to selling age-restricted goods [3], and rolling back ‘ID culture’ will only start when they are scrapped.

If it is really serious about tackling ID culture, the government must remove the pressures driving it. Retailers won’t stop checking – and, in some cases, collecting [4] personal information – on people in their 20s, 30s or older until the regime of excessive penalties, rules and regulations is gone. Government must stop making retailers guilty unless they can prove otherwise, stop making their staff criminally liable, stop threatening to remove licences for errors, and stop making collecting information on customers a condition of getting a licence in the first place licence.

Phil Booth, National Coordinator of NO2ID said:

‘It is no good the coalition abolishing ID cards, if it continues to reinforce a bullying ID culture.’

‘The coalition says it wants individuals to have freedom from an interfering and overbearing state. So why doesn’t it bring back common sense to age-limits, and stop this incessant demand for ‘ID’ — overregulation that is literally in your face?’

Josie Appleton, director of the Manifesto Club, says:

‘Producing your passport should not be a routine part of the checkout procedure. There is little point in the government abolishing ID cards while backing policies that mean we have to show ID whenever we go shopping. People in their 20s and 30s should be free to go to the supermarket or off licence without being constantly challenged.’

Notes

1. ‘28 ¾: How Constant Age Checks Are Infantilising Adults’ will be launched on Thursday 2nd September. For a copy, please contact Josie Appleton on 07791 032 740 or josie.appleton at manifestoclub.com
2. NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate for a list of database state initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.
3. Alcohol is not the only age-restricted product. As one local authority website points out:
   
   ‘Supplying any of the products listed to someone who is below the legal age is a criminal offence which can lead to you, or a member of your staff, being prosecuted. You may even lose your business.
   • Air Gun & Pellets – 18 years;
   • Alcohol – 18 years;
   • Adult Magazines – 18 years;
   • Fireworks – 18 years;
   • Solvents – 18 years;
   • Tattooing – 18 years;
   • Butane Gas Cigarette Lighter Refills – 18 years;
   • Cigarettes & Tobacco – 18 years;
   • Knives – 18 years;
   • Axes & Crossbows – 18 years;
   • Liqueur Chocolates – 16 years;
   • Pets – 16 years;
   • Lottery Tickets – 16 years;
   • Petrol – 16 years;
   • Scratch Cards – 16 years;
   • Party Poppers & Caps – 16 years;
   • Aerosol Paint Containers – 16 years;
   • DVD’s [sic], Cinema and some Computer Games – 12, 15 & 18 years.’

4. Systems such as ‘ClubScan’, in operation in many bars and nightclubs around the country, not only check but record personal information — even ‘capturing the full ID image including photos’ of passports and driving licenses. See, for example: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/58738-clubbers-call-for-end-on-scanners and http://nightclub.co.uk/

For immediate or future interview, please call:

• Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator at no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
• Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary at no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
• Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer at no2id.net) on 07773 376 166

It emerged last night that the government has finally stopped the NHS sending misleading mailings to patients about their medical records. But it has done nothing to prevent those who have already been mailed from being cheated of their medical privacy. The irrevocable upload of GP’s records to a national database is continuing for all families who have been sent the mailing, but who have not made a special application to opt-out.[1]

A Channel 4 News report [2] last night obtained the following statement from the NHS:

‘We believe the decision on whether to create new Summary Care Records must continue to be taken locally by GP practices and Primary Care Trusts.

…

‘All new mailings of letters informing patients about the Summary Care Record have been paused…’

In other words, those Primary Care Trusts already uploading personal records can continue to do so, despite the process being stopped.

NO2ID [3] renewed its call on health minister Andrew Lansley to suspend the NHS Summary Care Records programme altogether.

Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID said:

‘This is an extraordinary decision. A gang of robbers is apprehended, but gets to keep all the stolen goods. By halting further mailings, they effectively admit the process is deceptive. By doing it quietly, they show they don’t want a fuss. But people who have already been deceived, millions of them, stay cheated. The bureaucrats can do what they like with their records.

‘If it is wrong to go on, then it was wrong to start with. Uploads must cease now.’

-ENDS-

Notes

1. 26 million ‘kept in the dark’ as ministry prepares to seize their medical records, NO2ID Press Release — 16 June 2010 http://press.mu.no2id.net/2010-06/26-million-kept-in-the-dark-as-ministry-prepares-to-seize-their-medical-records/
2. NHS patient record leaflet campaign halted, Channel 4, 12 August 2010
   http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/nhs+patient+record+leaflet+campaign+halted/3741962
3. NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.

For more information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact

• Phil Booth (National Coordinator, national.coordinator at no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
• Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary at no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
• or Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer at no2id.net) on 07773 376 166.

The former Chair of IT for the British Medical Association’s General Practitioners Committee (GPC) has today called on GPs across England to automatically opt all of their patients out of the Summary Care Record, now known to present “risks to patient safety” [1].

Dr Paul Cundy is the most senior practising GP to date to declare that he will block all of his patients from being uploaded to the system. His press release [2] explains what GPs must do to make their patients safe, and he confirms: “I will be doing this in my surgery before the end of the month.”

NO2ID, which has been campaigning on medical confidentiality since 2006 [3], called on Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley to step in and immediately suspend the entire Summary Care Record (SCR) programme, pending a full review.

Following the publication of a damning report into Summary Care Records by an independent team at UCL [4], the General Practitioners Committee of the British
Medical Association passed two extremely strongly-worded motions, which advised:

“…in view of the risks to patient safety caused by the failures of SCRs to be reliably and consistently updated, access to existing SCRs should be immediately be suspended by the government…”. The other motion states that because “the clinical benefits are insufficient to justify continuation at present… the creation of SCRs in England should be halted” [5].

Phil Booth, National Coordinator of NO2ID said:

“The Coalition promised to put patients in charge of their records. Will Andrew Lansley now keep this promise — or will he allow millions of patients’ confidentiality and health to be put at risk?

“Leaving it to individual GPs to stand up for their patients — and letting the department try and bypass them [6] – shows the bureaucracy, not the Government, is still in control.”

Notes

1. Doctors in Birmingham discovered that 1 in 10 records uploaded to the system so far contain out-of-date information or errors that could put patients’ lives
   at risk. See, e.g. ‘One in ten electronic medical records contain errors’, Telegraph, 17/7/10: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7895094/One-in-ten-electronic-medical-records-contain-errors-doctors.html
2. ‘Opt out all your patients from Summary Care Records, former GPC IT chief urges’, Pulse, 27/7/10: http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=35&storycode=4126670&c=2
   Dr Cundy states: “Previously GPs might also have had to write to all their patients telling them that they were doing this but the emerging news that the
   SCR is actually positively unsafe means they definitely no longer need to do this. Stopping uploads protects patients’ data and certainly does them no harm.”
3. NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate for a list of database state initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing. NO2ID helped launch NHS Confidentiality campaign http://www.nhsconfidentiality.org in 2006, which won the right for patients to opt out of the Summary Care Record.
4. The report found that the project had been poorly managed, that it brought little if any benefit, and that the data on the system had a significant error
   rate. A copy of the full report can be downloaded from: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1006/10061703
5. Full text of the two motions passed by the BMA GPC on 15th July 1020:
   

   “That GPC believes that, after consideration of the UCL Report in respect of the Summary Care Record (SCR) in England:

   1. the clinical benefits are insufficient to justify continuation at present, particularly at a time when patients are being denied proven clinical services on the grounds of expense;
   2. the clinical benefits are insufficient to justify the creation without fully informed explicit consent;
   3. the clinical benefits are insufficient to justify GPs consenting to the upload of data on behalf of patients who have not expressed consent;
   4. the creation of SCRs in England should be halted until the full review of the model, and other models, has taken place to address cost-effectiveness and the
   need for informed and explicit consent of patients.”

   “That GPC believes that in view of the risks to patient safety caused by the failures of SCRs to be reliably and consistently updated, access to existing SCRs should be immediately be suspended by the government until all patient safety issues have been fully investigated and satisfactorily resolved.”

6. On 4th June, Minister for Health Simon Burns said uploading of information to SCR would continue ’so long as GP practices and Primary Care Trusts agreed that patients had been “adequately informed” and properly enabled to opt-out’. In reality, PCTs have been dealing directly with practice managers not GPs — i.e. both patients and doctors have effectively been cut out of the decision process. See ‘NHS IT minister says SCR “will continue”‘, e-Health Insider, 4/6/10: http://www.ehiprimarycare.com/News/5967/nhs_it_minister_says_scr_%E2%80%98will_continue%E2%80%99

For immediate or future interview, please call:

• Phil Booth (National Coordinator, national.coordinator at no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
• Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary at no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
• Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer at no2id.net) on 07773 376 166