Title: Police want
to see teenage girls' sexual health data
Subject: Data base with information about sexual health is useful for the
police
Web Address: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-want-to-see-teenage-girls-sexual-health-data-7814694.html
Date: June 4
Author: Kevin Rawlinson
Date: June 4
Author: Kevin Rawlinson
Summary:
Police want
information from sexual health screening databases to tackle child grooming
gangs. But forces face a fight to convince doctors, who are worried both about
patient confidentiality and deterring young people from getting tested. Doctors
are willing to work with police on the plans to access a city-wide chlamydia
and gonorrhea screening database for under-25s, with talks underway, if at an
early stage. Officers said that experience shows high levels of testing for
sexually transmitted infections in a particular area can suggest that a gang is
grooming young people – mainly women – for sex.
Reaction:
This is one of those
typical cases where privacy and safety do not seem to go well together. There
are always people who feel like privacy is a very important right and also
people who are willing to give up their privacy in exchange for information,
convenience or safety. Besides that it is not a good sign that there apparently
are child-grooming gangs who are a real danger to young people. My opinion is
that it can never hurt to test for a sexually transmitted disease and if it can
help prevent crimes it is probably the way to go.
I agree, in this case I think that bit of privacy is worth giving up. Besides, people think that by giving up this information the whole world will know. Really, mostly your data will be numbers on some file stacked away amongst millions of other files.
ReplyDeleteI'm very privacy consious, although that might not show in my everyday life. But whenever something official asks for my personal information I use to clamp shut. Perhaps I'm just waaay too rebellious. Of course the reason is reasnable enough to give up the privacy because they will only ask for this when you make a complaint about being whatevered.
ReplyDelete