SNP have made a big mistake on personal data

The Scottish Government’s decision to allow public bodies access to personal data through an individual’s NHS number is very worrying.

Next year dog owners will be required by law to have their pooches micro-chipped.

Hopefully it will help hold the irresponsible owners of those “devil dogs” to account and reduce the number of attacks, maimings and fatalities. I wonder, though, how long it will be before we are ALL micro- chipped, assimilated and logged into a national supercomputer?

Well, given the Scottish Government’s very worrying decision to allow public bodies access to personal data through an individual’s NHS number, not long!

I’ve never made any bones about my desire to live in a free, democratic, socially just and independent Scotland. Yet this decision by the SNP to allow faceless public bodies, quangos and agencies such as Quality Meat Scotland, Botanic Gardens, Alcohol Focus and Visit Scotland unfettered access to our personal data seems to be the polar opposite of what I and many others believe they stood for.

If it is just the addition of our post code to data already held why are those large (no)bodies, paid for by the tax payer, allowed access to the data?

More importantly why have we, the individuals, not been asked if we agree to this policy or not? Surely we should be given a form, like they did with vote registration, containing an opt-in box to tick where we can make our minds up whether we should take part or not.

I don’t remember this being mentioned in their manifesto.

Then there is the issue of security and protection of our data or rather the total lack of security.

I’m not convinced by John Swinney’s assurances that no medical records will be shared, that they will be protected, that it is only to catch those who avoid paying tax. How can he say that when individuals or professional gangs of hackers, employed by criminals or rival states, are continually breaking into some of the most protected and secure systems on the planet?

So please don’t tell me our records are safe, John. They aren’t and never will be, because a hacker only needs to be successful once to cause chaos whereas those charged with protecting and securing our data need to be successful 100% of the time.

Security is now so bad and programs so easily corrupted or infiltrated these days I’m surprised that any of us allow the banks or government anywhere near our information.

Forget the rhetoric! Where is the real and tangible proof that the safeguards will be in place, that our very personal medical records will not be given away to everyone and their granny, that this well-meaning scheme is not an ID card through the back door?

Why has this not been properly discussed in front of the electorate and their blessing sought?

Finally, please explain why so many agencies and quangos are to be allowed access to our personal data and records without our consent? That is not on!

I am now a tad nervous, which I never was before, for the future of Scotland if we are ever to become independent. This decision has deflated my nationalist utopian bubble and I now wonder if we are about to replace a rotten, intrusive and corrupt system of governance with one that is just as rotten, intrusive and corrupt but which at its core will be nothing more than a PC, super-snooping, big-brotheresque, one-party state.

I hope not. I hope that my trust in the SNP hasn’t been misplaced. I hope that they recognise the errors of their ways here, and will be willing to re-engage and discuss possible changes or give the electorate the assurances we all need that they are not abusing the democratic process or pulling the wool over our eyes.

We all know we deserve better but are the seeds being sown for a new, just Scotland or one that is insular, suspicious and divided?

In other words what we already have!