[LINK] Your Medicare records online

Wed Mar 3 09:16:45 AEDT 2010

On 03/03/2010, at 8:46 AM, Kim Holburn wrote:

> This is rather scary.

Well, perhaps. I'm puzzled to understand Juanita Fernando's declaration: is 'being curious' a privacy or social problem?

Karen Curtis puzzles me further by using public service speak in describing 'potential breaches', which is quite different to 'breach'.

ABC editors should be more careful in scanning this stuff: 'it is not known who or how far the information was allowed to spread' is poorly constructed waffle ('who... the information was allowed to spread'?). And where is the link to the heading used?

I wonder if Medicare breaches are of any concern to the Facebook generation?

iT

> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/02/2834702.htm
> 
>> Medicare privacy breaches 'only the beginning'
>> By Carly Laird for PM
>> 
>> Medicare says it has implemented privacy controls to curb snooping.  
>> (ABC News: Giulio Saggin, file photo)
>> 
>> Revelations that Medicare employees are being investigated for  
>> spying on customers' personal information have renewed fears from  
>> privacy advocates that healthcare staff cannot be trusted.
>> As the Federal Government works to bring in a national identity  
>> scheme for patients, around 400 cases have emerged of unauthorised  
>> snooping on people's private records over the past four years.
>> 
>> Medicare says it has implemented privacy controls and that the  
>> number of cases of snooping has been getting smaller, however it is  
>> not known who or how far the information was allowed to spread.
>> 
>> The agency has given few details of how the snooping was allowed to  
>> occur and no one from Medicare was available to speak to PM this  
>> afternoon.
>> 
>> The privacy commissioner, Karen Curtis, insists Medicare is not  
>> ignoring the issue.
>> 
>> "Any privacy breach is a concern, but the fact that Medicare is  
>> monitoring and investigating these potential breaches of personal  
>> information and they've got systems in place, that's actually good  
>> news," she said.
>> 
>> Medicare says staff caught snooping in the past four years have been  
>> disciplined but will not give details.
>> 
>> Juanita Fernando, the chair of the health sub-committee at the  
>> Australian Privacy Foundation, says Medicare's assurances may be of  
>> little comfort to people whose privacy has been breached.
>> 
>> "Wherever there is a whole range of information collected together,  
>> regardless of people's ethics or how good they are, they're going to  
>> look at it. And they do it basically out of curiosity," Dr Fernando  
>> said.
>> 
>> "I know anecdotally of ambulance officers during non-emergency cases  
>> of patients who, because they've got nothing else to do, just read  
>> patients' files while they're sitting and waiting.
>> 
>> "And we already know that although Medicare staff are highly trusted  
>> by Australian consumers and patients, Medicare workers are still  
>> human and that's why the breaches occurred."
>> 
>> 
>> Patient records
>> Dr Fernando is concerned the privacy breaches at Medicare are a sign  
>> of things to come.
>> 
>> The Government has introduced bills into Parliament for what it  
>> calls an "individual health identifier". They bills go to a Senate  
>> inquiry next week.
>> 
>> The ID number will be used to collate all patient records in one  
>> place so health providers can gain access to relevant information at  
>> the one time.
>> 
>> It is the first stage of the Council of Australian Governments'  
>> national electronic health plan.
>> 
>> "It's of real concern to me and to many people who contact the  
>> Australian Privacy Foundation," Dr Fernando said.
>> 
>> "They're very concerned about it because if I'm a miscreant of some  
>> sort, I can just use a single number and access people's records  
>> from whatever health service I decide to go into."
>> 
>> To stop this from happening, Dr Fernando says security controls must  
>> be put in place to guard against the known ways people breach health  
>> information.
>> 
>> "You don't develop honey pots. You don't develop huge amassed files  
>> with people's information, so that if security is breached it is  
>> breached in one or two instances not for the entire population of  
>> Australia," she said.
>> 
>> 
>> Extra security
>> Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, the former head of the Australian Medical  
>> Association and the current head of the clinical unit at the  
>> National E-Health Transition Authority, says the new system will  
>> provide extra security for patients.
>> 
>> "The way in which the system will be rolled out is far more secure  
>> with these new arrangements than they are with a paper record," he  
>> said.
>> 
>> "With a paper record today you can potentially wander into a medical  
>> record department, anybody can wander in and have a look at  
>> somebody's notes without anybody knowing what's going on.
>> 
>> "With the new arrangements, the [ID] number is only a number and  
>> pertains to no medical information. So the number being generated by  
>> Medicare actually has no medical information attached to it.
>> 
>> "In order to get access to medical information the person has to be  
>> an authorised healthcare provider."
>> 
>> Dr Fernando says no one can say whether the new system will be more  
>> secure because "nobody is actually looking at the facts".
>> 
>> "For instance, notes about the Medicare data breach are tucked away  
>> on the Australian Privacy Commission's website. We essentially don't  
>> know what's going to happen," she said.
>> 
>> "It's like taking a great big jump off into the unknown and being  
>> comfortable that the Government is going to be trustworthy and  
>> capable enough to take care of us all."
>> 
>> If the legislation is passed it could only be a matter of months  
>> before the ID numbers are used by healthcare professionals.
>> 
>> 
> -- 
> Kim Holburn
> IT Network & Security Consultant
> T: +61 2 61402408  M: +61 404072753
> mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
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Ivan Trundle
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