Refereed papers Privacy and health information: health cards offer a workable solution

Recent events have highlighted one of the intrinsic weaknesses of computerised information resources: the attractions of storing more and more information in one place creates a higher risk of that information being improperly accessed.Copying largedatabases onto laptops and optical media makes them readily trans-portable, but also easily lost or stolen. Reports have catalogued numerous losses in theUKof government-held confidential and often personal information,1–3 and there is evidence that public confidence is being eroded.4 It seems unlikely that the losses that have been declared give the full picture. Undoubtedly far more personal information has been improperly accessed and disclosed through authorised system users abusin