British Patients Association rallies around smart card implementation
11 March, 2010
category: Corporate, Digital ID, Government, Health
After the recent violation of patients medical records, the Patients Association in the UK is campaigning for a medical smart card deployment.
The patients are concerned about their safety and the confidentiality of their records after hearing that their medical records are being put online without their consent, according to the British Medical Association. Additionally it is claimed that the database system is easily open to hacking.
The smart card would work a portable medical record that compiles all a patient’s information onto a single device.
The card would replace the need for an online database that people find unsafe and easily susceptible to hackers. The Department of Health said that the smart card solution was considered however it was thought that people would not always remember to carry their details with them. The need to have a patients record on hand is crucial in times of emergency and they did not want to risk a card being misplaced or forgotten. Therefore they opted for the giant database solution.
No reports of hacking have been reported thus far, view the full story here.
