Data-Sharing Agreement: Immigration and Government Access

data-sharing agreement: In letters recently made public, politicians sparred with immigration officials over a data-sharing agreement quietly signed in 2016 that gives the government access to personal information collected by the country's family doctors, according to Metro News. Medical details are excluded.A parliamentary health committee condemned the situation as unacceptable, calling for the agreement to be suspended. Doctors who work with refugees and asylum-seekers have described the move as a major breach of medical ethics, saying it isn't up to physicians to enforce immigration rules. But Britain's immigration department has dismissed those concerns, arguing that such data sharing allows the U.K. to remove people who might pose a danger to the public. We understand the government has a job to do, but going into health records to get patient information is not OK, said Lucy Jones, director of programs at Doctors of the World U.K. The idea that any patient information is being shared with a government body immediately breaks their trust in a doctor-patient relationship. Medical workers back the health committee's viewpoint. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.