Autonomy and Gurning

Just Read this piece on Grumpy Old Deafies which raises the point that here's a deal being brokered by the RNID to let the charity deal with giving out hearing aids rather than the NHS. Quite apart from it being akin to privatisation of another element of the NHS, it's shocking to think how much data the RNID would then have on every Deaf person - they already know everything you say on the phone via Typetalk, they likely have your CV because of their employment service, they've assessed you for access to work support and decided how much support you merit, know what products you own for access outside of work and they also know where you've been and who you've spoken to because of their communication support services.

This made me boggle a little bit. As an interpreter you're so keenly aware of the things you know about the people you work with - everything from where they work, how much they earn and what their last appraisal involved to things like medical conditions and sexual histories. You can understand why a lot of interpreters hold back from being a part of the deaf community because you go down the pub to hang out with your mates and you see people, say, whose children you were involved in taking away, or you see someone you know is accused of raping someone you've worked with. I can imagine that particularly for those interpreters whose focus is community work this is a strange burden to hold.

Now, I trust that the vast, vast majority of people providing communication support do respect confidentiality and remain sensitive to this, but there's the factor with interpreters who work for, say, a local authority or with an agency that they, quite rightly, have regular supervision within their team where they can discuss the things that have come up in their work. Quite rightly, confidentiality when you're dealing with an interpreter working for social services, means confidentiality within a team or a service, rather than with the individual involved.

I don't suspect the RNID of any such thing, but it's possible that within a large organisation there is information overspill and supervision meeting records stored electronically are on the same system as data relating to interpreting bookings so even with names removed, it's not hard to extrapolate identities. The thought that this could then be combined with information like someone's career history, home address, medical history and phone conversations is frightening enough when the government do it but when that degree of data capture is possible under the care of a non-governmental body that isn't answerable to the people whose data it holds is a galling possibility.

"Changing the world for deaf and hard of hearing people," they say, and I do not doubt their motives or their intent and I'm certain there's nothing shadowy or sinister going on, but there has to be some sense that we're putting all our eggs in one basket here by making the RNID responsible for yet another aspect of the lives of an undeniably vulnerable group of people. Striving for an integrated approach to how deaf people are supported - which is unfortunately a necessity in a society that has few default provisions for sign language users (compared to, say, Welsh speakers) - is a good principle, but it surely has to remain a choice for the people who it works with. While I'm sure the contract to sell hearing aids and distribute NHS hearing aids will be put out to tender, there's no way any other charity can compete with the leviathan that the RNID has become.

Would be interesting to spend a few pounds on pulling up data protection act files from some of the larger organisations to see what data they actually hold about us - partly because of fears of Big Brother stuff, partly because it'd feel like filling out a personality test online and be fun to know what your data said about you.

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In Other News:
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The Tower continues to be argued about locally. Media misrepresentation seems to be a theme at the moment, eh?
American armed forces have fired 11,000 people for being gay, including a lot of their Arabic translators, forcing them to rely on machines for their intelligence.