‘Those on the list are frightened’
A PATIENT who found his medical details exposed through the email blunder yesterday said the breach had deprived patients of their chance to tell ‘who they want to tell’ that they were HIV-positive.
Paul Fleming, who was declared HIV-positive 13 years ago, was a patient at the Dean Street clinic.
Yesterday he said he found out about the leak on social media – before learning that his own name was on the list.
Mr Fleming told ITV News: ‘I’m not ashamed of having HIV. I’ve been HIV-positive for 13 years.
‘But lots of people really struggle with the fact that there’s still a lot of stigma surrounding the condition.
‘And a lot of the people on the list, I think, were maybe really quite frightened – frightened of who else may know, frightened of not having control of telling the people they want to tell that they’ve got HIV.
‘That control has been taken away from them.’ every other patient. One patient on the list, a public sector worker named Kevin, told the BBC: ‘I felt sick when I realised what had happened. I couldn’t breathe.
‘I’m concerned who will get this information. If it ends up in the hands of the wrong people such as hate groups, it could be dynamite.’
Elliot Herman, 38, from London, a friend of several patients at the clinic, said there were names on the list of people who had never disclosed their HIV status to him before.
Mr Herman told The Guardian: ‘There are several names I recognise and while I am of course being discreet, I am not sure I trust every other person on the list to do the same.’
The Information Commissioner’s Office, which can levy fines of up to £500,000 for significant data breaches, is investigating.
National Aids Trust chief executive Deborah Gold said: ‘Confidentiality is crucial to people living with HIV.
‘This leak will be very distressing and should not have been possible.’
Experts last night said that Mr Hunt’s plans to put health data online had been put in doubt, and warned that patients might become vulnerable to stalkers and ‘predatory companies’ might get hold of data.