Your medical data is at risk.

Health Minister Nicola Blackwood says the risks from cyber attacks on the NHS are ‘ongoing’ and that ‘we need to make sure that health and social care information is protected with the highest possible standards of security.’ That’s why she’s implementing new cybersecurity measures within the NHS. 

But the Snoopers’ Charter creates records on everything you do, including your health, outside of the NHS.

Ask Theresa May to speak publicly about how our medical data will be kept safe under the Snoopers’ Charter.

The Investigatory Powers Bill (aka Snoopers’ Charter) being pushed through parliament right now will expose our medical conditions to hackers and snoops. 
Internet service providers will have to keep very detailed records of what sites people have accessed and store those records for a year. These large stores of information are much more detailed than anything stored now, and it's almost guaranteed that we will see multiple leaks and hacks.

This is a massive loophole in the current bill. In real terms: imagine every site you have ever visited being made public. Any health fear that you’ve wanted to learn about and Googled. Any medication or prescription that you have looked up online. It will be easy to infer what medical conditions you might have, and for that to be laid bare for any foreign government or criminal to access.

While healthcare and the NHS is being increasingly digitised, we are at a crossroads when it comes to the future security of our medical data. The bill is passing through the House of Lords now and will soon return to the Commons for a second vote. We have to speak out now.

Ask Theresa May to speak publicly about how our medical data will be kept safe under the Snoopers’ Charter.

Prime Minister May has been trying to get access to all of our private data for years now, first introducing the Snoopers’ Charter to parliament in 2012. The bill will put the capabilities revealed by Snowden into the statute books and increase the state's surveillance powers.

But we don’t have to accept being spied on.

The SumOfUs community has come together to protect internet freedom before, mobilising tens of thousands of internet users to submit public comments, sign petitions, and make phone calls to pass strong Net Neutrality rules in the US. We were also successful at scrapping the NHS England’s deeply flawed plans to sell your GP data.

SumOfUs exists for exactly this reason -- to bring people together and use our collective power to curb shady deals between industry and government, that are not in the public's best interest.

Use that power now and ask Theresa May to speak publicly about how our medical data will be kept safe under the Snoopers’ Charter.

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