Student says Covid contact tracer sent her ‘creepy’ Instagram messages
The student fears that the man also knows where she lives
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Your support makes all the difference.An NHS Test and Trace call handler could be suspended from his job after he allegedly used a student’s personal details to send her “creepy messages” on social media.
The student, a 22-year-old Oxford undergraduate, was contacted by the contact tracing worker in June to check she was self-isolating after returning to England from Italy.
She said that an hour after the legitimate call, he sent her a message on Instagram, saying: “Gonna sound weird, but spoke to you thru NHS...”
The student, who did not want to be named, said he called her “cool” and “pretty” and asked to know more about her.
She told the Daily Mail: “This man acted in a predatory manner and has gone out of his way to track me down and send me creepy messages though my private Instagram page.”
The student is now worried for her safety as she fears the contract tracer may have had seen her home address.
She added: “Someone like that should not be working for NHS Test and Trace, where they can access such sensitive personal data... there was the possibility that his online stalking could progress to physical stalking.”
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) told The Independent that it would be investigating the alleged incident.
A spokesperson said: “NHS Test and Trace is committed to protecting the personal data and safety of people they contact.
“All staff must adhere to the highest professional standards and if staff fall below these standards we will not hesitate to take immediate action to suspend individuals, where appropriate.”
The alleged incident took place when Italy was on the “amber list” of countries that required travellers to self-isolate for 10 days on arrival in England.
On Monday, the requirement to self-isolate after returning from a country on that list was removed for double-jabbed travellers, except those returning from France.
The Test and Trace system, that has been partly outsourced to private companies Serco and Sitel, was launched in May last year to provide contact tracing services amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
It had been set up without the government conducting an assessment required by GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) law, the DHSC admitted.
The system has cost “unimaginable” amounts of taxpayers’ money with no evidence of any measurable difference on the progress of pandemic, a scathing report by a Westminster spending watchdog found in March this year.
Last year, it received criticism over its call handlers failing to reach about 40 per cent of people that had been in contact with someone that tested positive for the virus.
A number of call handlers also slammed the system, saying that there was a lack of training and, at times, not enough work to do, so some of them spent time working from home playing video games and watching Netflix.
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