NHS email encryption

[Roger Hayter]

In message <op.txomon146hl8nm@clerew.man.ac.uk>, Charles Lindsey 
<chl@clerew.man.ac.uk> writes
>On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:58:49 +0100, Adrian Midgley 
><amidgley2@defoam.net>  wrote:
>
>> But the assertion made to us is that nhs.net mail gives us secure access
>> to our mail (IE maintaining "end to end" encryption) from eg home, when
>> we read it collecting it from/using the nhs.net servers which are
>> provided for access to internal mail from outside.
>
>Then they have a funny idea of what "end" means :-( .
>
>It seems it is kept secure from everyone except the ones I would expect 
>you most wanted to hide it from.
>

As I remarked on this thread, users of NHS systems can have no 
expectation of privacy *from* the government.  The government already 
assert the right to use hospital administrative and care record data for 
central administrative purposes and for clinical audit.  There is a lot 
of pressure to allow it to be used it for medical research (which would 
include selling the information to drug companies).  It would be 
entirely consistent with this policy to archive the plain text of all 
NHS email.  Our only legitimate concern would be the ability of the 
central system to keep our email out of the hands of third parties.
-- 
Roger Hayter