public ownership campaigners

Campaigners and union reps demand NHS ‘cease all contracts with Palantir’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/campaigners-and-union-reps-demand-nhs-cease-all-contracts-palantir

 NHS staff blockade the entrance to NHS England’s headquarters in central London demanding the cancellation of its contract with Palantir, which campaign groups say supplies advanced technology to Israel’s military, April 3, 2024

US tech giant granted ‘unlimited access’ to patients’ data

HEALTH union reps, public ownership campaigners and Amnesty International UK demanded the NHS “cease all contracts with Palantir” today after the US tech company was granted “unlimited access” to patients’ data.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting was urged to reconsider a “staggering decision” to grant external staff from firms including Palantir access to patients’ identifiable data while working on its flagship platform.

An NHS England internal briefing note published today by the Financial Times said it would create an “admin” role which “permits unlimited access to non-NHS England staff” to the National Data Integration Tenant (NDIT) and identifiable patient data within it.

The NDIT is a part of a larger tool made to aggregate disparate NHS data into a single system called the Federated Data System, which earned Palantir a £330 million government contract in 2023.

As well as the controversial US tech firm, access to patients’ data could be given to any other outside firm contracted to work on the Federated Data System.

Previously, access to sensitive information required individuals working on the NDIT to apply for permission for specific data sets, the FT reported.

All-round access was initially meant to be reserved for NHS England employees with security clearance.

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/campaigners-and-union-reps-demand-nhs-cease-all-contracts-palantir

Related: Palantir to be granted ‘unlimited access’ to NHS patient data

Continue ReadingCampaigners and union reps demand NHS ‘cease all contracts with Palantir’

Public ownership campaigners urge Labour to go further and commit to renationalising rolling stock companies

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/public-ownership-campaigners-urge-labour-to-go-further-and-commit-to-renationalising-rolling-stock-companies/

Image of an East Coast train
An East Coast train at King’s Cross station

Labour announced this week that it will renationalise the railways, if elected. The party referred to the move as the ‘biggest overhaul to our railways in a generation.’

Under Labour’s proposals, train companies would be brought back into public ownership and run by a new body, Great British Railways, as their privatised contracts expire.

While the announcement has been broadly welcomed, with RMT general secretary Mick Lynch saying a publicly owned rail network is in the “best interests of railway workers, passengers and the taxpayer,” public ownership campaigners We Own It warn it doesn’t go far enough.

Following Labour’s announcement, Johnbosco Nwogbo, lead campaigner at public ownership campaign group We Own It, said it was time to “decommission the gravy train.”

“With delays and cancellations rife and some of the most expensive fares in Europe, polls show that over two thirds of us want our railways to be brought into public hands. Labour have rightly identified that the ownership of our public services will be a key issue for voters at this election.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/public-ownership-campaigners-urge-labour-to-go-further-and-commit-to-renationalising-rolling-stock-companies/

Continue ReadingPublic ownership campaigners urge Labour to go further and commit to renationalising rolling stock companies