Nature has published an editorial on care.data, including some reflections on public confidence in the project: On 19 February, the NHS, which had stubbornly dismissed such criticisms, reluctantly admitted that its critics might have a point, and postponed the launch until the autumn. But the agency still seems to be in denial, arguing that opposition is merely down to problems of communication and public perception. That response is wrong. Care.data is far from ready for launch. Incredibly, with just a few weeks to go to the scheduled launch, the NHS had not even laid out in detail which groups would be able to access the data, and on what terms. Thus, the public could not fully know what they were signing up to, raising fears that personal data might end up, for example, in the hands of insurance and other commercial companies. Economic growth is a core goal of any […]