[LINK] Your Medicare records online

[Kim Holburn]

On 2010/Mar/03, at 10:50 AM, Ivan Trundle wrote:

>
> On 03/03/2010, at 10:39 AM, Stephen Wilson wrote:
>
>> Ivan Trundle wrote:
>>> Social behaviours are not always thwarted by the imposition of  
>>> laws....
>>> For anyone to suggest what 'the real issue is' only convinces me
>>> that it is not, or that it demands deeper examination.
>>
>> That's a fair point in the general, but in my defence, I was trying  
>> to
>> stress that what matters most in this particular case is that staff  
>> were
>> breaking the law by peeking at records.  Judging by the way Ivan you
>> prefaced your response to Juanita with "perhaps" [the Medicare  
>> breach is
>> scary], I thought that your examination of the reasons for  
>> curiosity was
>> deflecting from the fact that privacy laws were broken.
>
> My concern was the way in which it was described: for the privacy  
> commissioner to use the words 'potential breaches' is disingenuous.  
> For the reporter to suggest that it was 'only the beginning' is  
> laughable.
>
> That aside, I used 'perhaps' because, unlike Kim's assertion, I  
> don't view 'potential privacy breaches' as being 'very scary'. I am  
> usually scared by things which cause me to palpitate and sweat, not  
> by 'potential' lax implementation of privacy controls.

I don't know for me scary isn't just things that are immediately  
physically dangerous but things that I see may happen in the future.

> The report was even more puzzling to me since it declares that the  
> number of cases is getting smaller, so why all the hyperbole?


There's not a lot of information in the report.

I don't really like this bit:
> "In order to get access to medical information the person has to be  
> an authorised healthcare provider."

> Medicare says it has implemented privacy controls and that the  
> number of cases of snooping has been getting smaller,

It's not really clear if this is the case and how they know.  They log  
every access?  They make health care providers log in first to access  
the information?

> however it is not known who or how far the information was allowed  
> to spread.

They can't log that then.  They didn't talk to the snoopers and ask  
them at least?

This is all happening now?  Our records are online now and accessible  
by any health professional?  Do we get any say over who accesses our  
information?  Do we get any right of approval about who accesses our  
medical data?  Do we even get told someone has accessed the data?

-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
T: +61 2 61402408  M: +61 404072753
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
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