Posts Tagged ‘Privacy’

Travel to the USA?

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Just when I thought I didn’t need any new reasons not to travel to the US a new one pops up:

Europeans and other potential enemies of the US are to be forced to deposit their personal details on the Department of Homeland Security’s computer system 72 hours before they get anywhere near the place.

The new rules will apply to citizens of the UK, and other countries whose citizens can travel to the US under the “visa waiver program”, from January next year. The prime motivation for the scheme is increased concern in Washington that European grown terrorists can exploit the visa waiver program to get into the US and wreak havoc.

Such a beautiful, interesting country populated by really great people; sadly governed by (apparent) idiots.

UK Biobank & Privacy

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

I got an invite from the UK Biobank project to participate in their project. They are asking 40-69 year olds to come along for 1.5 hours and answer lots of questions about their health, families and lifestyles, provide blood and urine samples and have a set of tests. These tests are for lung functions, bone density and other health related metrics.

On their web site, they go to great lengths to say how safe the data will be; that the DNA and other information will be held anonymously and that they definitely won’t give the information to anyone (except if told to by the legal authorities). Except, the data isn’t held anonymously.

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