West Lothian and email

[Roland Perry]

In article <20090113205556.xew5dvolcw8sgs0g@webmail01.purplecloud.com>, 
signup@bealoid.co.uk writes
>BBC Radio Four's "InTouch" programme had an interesting piece about 
>'data protection paranoia', and a blind woman who was told by her 
>Mental Health trust that they could not email appointment details to 
>her because of data protection laws.

Was that specifically due to their perception that email was susceptible 
to eavesdropping? (and other forms of notification weren't).

It might also fit the "withheld phone number" scenario, where health 
professionals generally refuse to allow other household members to even 
know the patient is being treated by a specific clinic, and many email 
facilities are shared (and you might even expect that a blind person's 
email would be routinely read out to them by someone else - but the same 
goes for the post, I didn't say this was argument was watertight!).

But I've had all kinds of "because of data protection" nonsense, 
including for example, NTL once using it as an excuse why they couldn't 
tell me my *own* phone number (for a line I'd ordered and was awaiting 
installation).

Sometimes there are genuine reasons for wanting to protect someone's 
privacy, but it doesn't help to mis-describe them all as DPA issues.

>With an IT overhaul costing billions hasn't anyone heard of encrypted 
>email?

The problem always has been: whose format of encrypted email (not much 
interoperability, afaik), and is there any format that doesn't require 
at least "A level" computer science qualifications to operate?
-- 
Roland Perry