Curtiss Green

That is the title on the Wetherspoon News – special edition publishing all of the redactions made by the press about them. The truth does matter but sometimes people and organisations do not want to hear the whole truth or rather a variation of the truth that they can deal with. Even with data protection … Read more

One of the good things about data protection legislation not changing is that it keeps the human element involved with automated decision making. There always has to be a person at the end of the chain taking responsibility. ChatGPT, Copilot and other types out there all have their place and are great for finding source … Read more

That is not “I am going to blackmail someone” but more there is a point where you just know too much and people start to be threatened and/or they think you have been around too much. Some organisations will only learn when those people move on just how valuable they were. Experienced and knowledgeable people … Read more

With the election coming it looks like changes to data protection legislation are not going to happen (for now). Saw the perfect description of what was proposed today – a “curates egg” – something that was so bad that you had to say something good about it. That also means that a lot of the … Read more

An asset is something that has value to you. A wedding ring may not have been expensive but the sentimental value if lost or stolen could be a lot. A laptop may not have been expensive but the data on it may be irreplaceable for a business and its loss could close down the business … Read more

The simple answer is no. The more cynical, complex answer is the NHS in England is really a series of franchises running under the brand of the NHS BUT it is a healthcare management system defined by law. As a healthcare management system it can make decisions about how and where you can get treatment … Read more

Over the last few months I have been trying to write in a way that is readable and accessible – apparently the average reading age is around eleven. It is harder than it looks, especially when my reading age is far higher than eleven. I am benefitting from doing this and I think that whoever … Read more

The main reasons are: Ten years ago it was difficult but seemed to be manageable. Ten years later it seems to be extremely difficult but not as manageable.

A week later it ranges from IVF, death through to a query around surgery on someone backside. If you are using peoples data in the NHS you need to know who they are and what they are experiencing – you cannot do that if you just refer to them by their NHS Number. That is … Read more

Dealing with a large data incident – one of the things that is complicating it is the inconsistent data quality linked to staff names – literally lack of attention to how they are spelt. Key message in the NHS is that we have to care about the quality of the data to everyone who uses … Read more