[LINK] Rudd Government abandons border security of privacy

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Thank you, Graham. Your article presents clear, and compelling, logic.

 
> Australian Policy Online (APO) has published my article 'Rudd 
> Government abandons border security of privacy', about the 
> Government's proposals (based on the ALRC) concerning 
> exports/outsourcing of personal information at
> <www.apo.org.au/commentary/rudd-government-abandons-border-security-
privacy> 


'Private Medical Records Offered For Sale'

Published 20th Oct 2009   http://ehealtheurope.net/news/5311/

Medical records of patients treated at a private British hospital, The 
London Clinic, have been illegally sold to investigators.

The revelations were made in ITV’s Tonight Programme, 'Health Records For 
Sale' and broadcast last night.

The programme reported that hundreds of files containing details of 
patients’ conditions, home addresses and dates of birth were offered to 
undercover reporters, for just £4 each, by sales executives in India.

The records offered for sale appear to have been medical records at the 
London Clinic, who contracted with a firm, DGL Information Technologies 
UK, to digitise their records.

DGL is then claimed to have sub-contracted to another firm, Scanning and 
Data Solutions (SDS), which scanned them into computers in the UK. 

SDS in turn is said to have sub-contracted further work on the files to a 
company in Pune, India.

The reporters bought more than 100 records belonging to UK patients, but 
were told they could obtain up to 30,000 more on demand.

The 116 files bought by ITV, one hundred of which were confirmed as 
genuine, were for patients who had been treated in private hospitals. 

One patient whose record was affected by the security breach said in the 
documentary that the data breach was ‘one step up from grave-robbing’.


> I hope as many people as possible can do their bit to convince the 
> Government to abandon this lemon of a policy.  The Government has 
> otherwise made  a reasonable set of choices of what to adopt, and 
> what to reject, from the ALRC recommendations. This one risks making 
> the rest of the reforms worthless.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Graham
> -- 
> --
> Graham Greenleaf
> Professor of Law
> 
> Mobile while in Korea, October 2009: 82 (0)10 8659 4537
> International Scholar, Kyung-Hee Law School, Seoul, Korea, 2009-10
> 
> Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales - Room 224
> UNSW SYDNEY NSW 2052  Australia (UNSW CRICOS Provider No: 00098G)
> Co-Director, Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII)
> Co-Director, Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre
> Asia-Pacific Editor, Privacy Laws & Business International
> 
> E-mail: g.greenleaf at unsw.edu.au or graham at austlii.edu.au
> Web Pages -  http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~graham/
> Legal Scholarship Network (LSN) pages - http://ssrn.com/author=57970
> Tel: +61 2 9385 2233 (UNSW) +61 2 9569 5310 (Home)
> Fax: +61 2 9385 1175 (UNSW) Office: Room 224, Law Faculty Building, UNSW
> 
*************************************************************************

Cheers,
Stephen