Do you want to optout from having your medical records automatically transferred to a national database?

Definately, I think it's a bloody cheek letting that information out to all and sundry, because thats what will happen if they go ahead. Any hacker will be able to access that information and the next step is to publish it on the web. Big Brother is definately watching now!!!

No. Except like the census information, I'm sure this government will see it as a source of income and sell the information to commercial organisations. I'm not worried about anyone the information as such, just don't want the inevitable deluge of spam and other direct marketing that would follow

I have mixed feelings on this. Surely the point is if anybody gets taken ill or is involved in a terrible accident a long way away from their home, there might be some medical condition or requirement the local Doctor badly needs to know, which may be critical to saving that person's life. This will be on the person's records where he lives but how is the Doctor or Surgeon hundreds of miles away otherwise going to be able to discover it unless there is some centralised databank that qualified Doctors can get into in event of an emergency.

BUT, yes I accept fully the point made by others that such confidential information should not be allowed to be accessed by anybody other than a senior medical practitioner needing this information in the interests of that person's safety of life! But surely technology is such today that such protection of personal information can be assured? After all, many pople today do all their banking on the internet. They can input their own very private and confidential bank account details only, this can not be done by people like the DVLA or Car Parking organisations after unpaid fines, in the way some respondents suggest, because the Banks' websites build in proper safeguards to prevent unauthorised access into people's private accounts by anybody outside the bank?

But having said that "YES" I also consider it totally outrageous that the DVLA should have sold confidential information about the home addresses of people with alleged parking offences to the likes of Local Authorities, as highlighted by Daily Mail last week, and I would certainly not oppose those in the DVLA responsible for this outrage being sent to prison, as well as the Minister in Blair's government who is clearly the real villain. But that is no reason to possibly endanger somebody's life by denying a surgeon or Doctor absolutely vital information during an operation or wherever. So my answer to this question is "YES" provided proper safeguards are built in to prevent those referred to by other respondents getting into this databank!

While I tend to agree with what Cimex says, I think he has made two errors. Firstly I think he means the answer to question is "NO" (not "yes") "provided proper safeguards are built in..."

But he is also surely wrong in his belief that the banks safeguard our privacy in their databanks. The true facts are the so-called "lawful authorities" can access any UK citizen's bank account, without the person even knowing and with the Blair government's blessing. Moreover, they do just that if THEY consider it appropriate, and we can do damn all to stop them.

Secondly anybody paying a sum of money into their account is required to have to tell the bank staff where they got that money, which I would consider to be an outrageous interference with our personal right of privacy. I would feel it appropriate to reply "mind your own bloody business". All this twaddle about "money laundering" seems to conveniently overlook the fact that the banks make profits of nearly Ten Billion pounds per year I repeat TEN BILLION POUNDS per year by fiddling us, such as as has been proved recently by an independent study, overcharging people who have gone overdrawn by ten times the true cost, and then telling lies that that is what it cost them!

So if anybody in the world is guilty of "money laundering", fiddling the facts and contravention of a person's right to privacy it is surely these nefarious Directors of the Banks! So why don't these "Liberty" people say that - not concern themselves with trivia like medical records, which as Cimex says "could save a person's life"!

That said my answer on Jeannebaxter's question is same as Cimex's. "NO" provided there are proper safeguards, which do not seem to have been properly thought through as yet.

unfortunately, my medical history is already on file somewhere in the internet so it wouldn't do me much good to go and opt out - however, as it has been stated, soon it will be perceived that only those with something to hide will have opted out, so i might as well do it to keep them bemused ;)

what i will say is how amazed i am that monumental things such as this often get announced in a whisper so that (as now) people are mostly unaware that anything's happening. it's freaky.