NHS data access problem (Safend)

[Rainmaker]

Dons: Is this a Windows thing? Is it classed as Enterprise stuff? Well it's mostly a moan, and a slight hope someone can help - so I've shoved it in GD.

I applied for my hospital notes/records/images from the hospital I've used all my life. I moved area a couple of years ago and the new Trust doesn't have a full history. It's hard to get treated for some things because they just check their computer and say 'Who diagnosed that? We don't have any record...'. It's become tiresome so I just got a CD ROM from the old hospital with all my notes on it. That way I can print off the relevant bits for my GP and she's happy to add them to my 'new area notes'.

Today I received a CD ROM, and a separate letter with a password for the encrypted volume on the disc. So far so good. I opened it and it's a bloody .exe file called AccessSecureData.123456.exe. That's nice, except I have a Linux PC and a MacBook Pro... So I boot into Windows 10 on a spare SSD. There's no instructions in the letter the Trust sent, just a password.

I click on the AccessSecureData file and it pops up for a nanosecond and disappears completely. I was expecting it to be a portable app. It seems it actually installed a service, as the encrypted volume is now a folder icon with a padlock on it. So, I double click that and a password prompt appears. Nice.

Except the password they sent me - which states it's all uppercase - does nothing. At all. I tried a fake password and that had the same result, namely nothing. I then tried their password with lowercase (in case they'd done CAPS + shift by accident when making the password), and again nothing. I then decided it might need a Windows reboot (everything else on Windows seems to), but that actually removed the Safend service and the volume's icon is now blank - and clicking on it says no app can open this file (.ses format).

The Safend website has absolutely no help, no docs, not even a download page for the tool. Nothing. The Trust website just has a paragraph saying for DPA/GDPR requests email the team I'm already dealing with.

I thought data supplied in this way had to be in an 'accessible format'? Making me install Windows isn't accessible. Having their proprietary app do nothing and fail to open isn't accessible. I'm very chagrined.

Does anyone (Dimple?) have any ideas here? Have I missed something obvious? Is this just a retarded solution? Why couldn't they have just sent an encrypted .tar.bz2 file or a .gzip or a .7zip or something? I suppose I'll have to wait until they open tomorrow, but my current money is on 'they've sent the wrong password'. Place your bets.

 

[Rainmaker]

Try running the exe again as administrator. Also try turning off any antivirus, etc.

Yeah, done and done. The account is an admin account, the exe will *only* run as admin, and I only had Windows Defender but I disabled it anyway. No dice. I even made a non-privileged account and copied the files over to its User directory. Double clicking the exe (no 'Run as Admin...') just brings up the Admin password prompt. Le sigh.

 

[Rainmaker]

If you want to use a mac then fine, really, fine. But come on you have to accept a bit of responsibility when the thing your trying to do doesn't go smoothly because most of the rest of the world uses something else.

Anyway as i said, they prob sent you the wrong password.

Thanks for the insightful posts. I do strongly disagree with your sentiments here, however. The law mandates 'accessible' data. That means it should work on Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, Solaris or anywhere else I decide to open it. Citing encryption needs is nonsense, as I already posted. They could meet the same demands with AES256 or whatever using .7z or .tar.gz.enc or whatever. That's free, open source stuff available to anyone anywhere, with the same rigorous encryption standards.

Having to install their own proprietary service as admin is a huge issue, both from security and privacy standpoints. As to whether I asked for the data in 'Mac format' - no, I didn't. The law was already clear so I didn't regard it as necessary to do so. I actually first accessed the CD under Linux, as I said. As it stands I'll have to wait until they're back in the office on Monday to ask for a resolution. They could have avoided all this - waste of NHS resources, staff hours/costs and all - just by using a plain old open, cross-platform standard. Repeating that 'most people use Windows' doesn't work here either, as it isn't accessible on Windows either. I just now have a deeply-embedded service running as root that's apparently quite hard to remove.

 

[Rainmaker]

@Rainmaker, did you get access to your data in the end?
Today I received the disk and I'm waiting for them to send me a password so I can access the files.
That .exe and encrypted volume is on my disk as well.

Yeah, I reiterated my issues with how they had delivered the data. They apologised and asked me to call into the office, where I collected several boxes full of notes, images, and reports. All fine in the end, just no convenient electronic copy.