transition said:
sarahs mum said:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/big-brother-is-watching-and-we-all-of-us-need-to-worry/news-story/60828af76ef9890724fa460a58184a09
good article. How did they sneak it past Rupert?
can’t read that, i’d need subscribe
fucken ‘tards in Canberra, it’s all been fucked since they knifed Abbot, and Rudd previous of the otherside, but going back to wanna-be-Menzies the shit set in.
basically with peoples medical files you limit the information, and possible access to information.
somewhere this idea came into existence that information’s really good. Well it’s not. The usual thing is people reduce it.
The federal government, and the Health Minister in particular, wants us all to sign up to the My Health Record system so it can track and share our health records electronically. It is so keen for Australians to be part of the new system that, rather than embracing an opt-in approach, it is shunning best practice and forcing anyone who doesn’t want to be involved to opt out.
If you do nothing, if your complacency gets the better of you, then your health records automatically will be uploaded into the MHR system. Governments usually are more than happy to spend millions of taxpayers’ dollars on “information campaigns” — supposedly to better inform the public about public policy initiatives. Too often those campaigns have a highly partisan edge to them, such as the Work Choices ads before the 2007 federal election.
Yet on this occasion, when best practice is being ignored and people need to actively opt out of the MHR system, there is no advertising push, no information campaign to make people aware of the options. Frankly, it’s Orwellian and the government should be ashamed of itself.
The window to opt out is only three months. After that, you can seek to have your record removed from the system but it still will be stored electronically (just not accessible) for 30 years after your death, after which time they will become available.
It’s a case of using the cabinet papers rules to oversee the health records of individual citizens. It’s ridiculous. And of course the security risks remain that the stored data may be hacked.
In an extraordinary interview on ABC radio during the week, the former head of the government’s own Digital Transformation Office, Paul Shetler, said that if he were an Australian citizen he definitely would opt out of the MHR system. Why? Because it could be a “tech wreck” in the making.
Privacy rights are something many of us increasingly have become complacent about in this digital age. Many of us share personal details online voluntarily via social media.
My political science students are far less outraged by the invasive nature of voter-tracking software that major parties use to build a picture about individual voters than was the case 10 or 15 years ago. This little-known example of citizens’ rights to privacy being invaded is the most egregious in our society. Political parties are private organisations, so they don’t need to submit themselves to Freedom of Information laws as public bodies do. Yet the parties exempted themselves from Privacy Act laws that require private organisations to disclose to people what information they have on us. Hence the offices of major parties have an electronic file on most, if not all, citizens detailing all sorts of information about them that they will never see and can never fact-check.
These are the same politicians who now want to collect your health records electronically with what can be described only as poor system oversight.
Given high-profile international hacking incidents in recent months, a growing consciousness finally is emerging that citizens of even a robust democratic culture should watch out what they choose to share with others. In theory the MHR system should be a positive and valuable clinical tool — a way doctors and healthcare professionals can share information about patients electronically to improve health outcomes. But it just isn’t that simple.
Perhaps surprisingly, the clinical benefits of the system are highly questionable at best and downright dangerous at worst. A survey of doctors by the Australian Medical Association found 76 per cent of respondents did not think the MHR system would improve patient outcomes. Surely that’s the only reason to support such an invasion of privacy.
In fact, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has said the system doesn’t even include a complete history of a patient’s medical history. It merely offers a snapshot, a “summary”.
There are no guarantees the information is up to date. There are no guarantees all allergies and medicines being taken have been included. Indeed, there are no guarantees the information stored is even accurate. This is a huge clinical problem because it means that in an emergency situation doctors can’t rely on what the MHR system tells them, raising legal and ethical problems.
No wonder so many doctors surveyed questioned the systems usefulness.
The reason there are so many holes in the accuracy of information stored in the MHR system echoes the reasons there is so little security of that same information. Access points to the data and details are wide and varied. This is why the Australian Digital Health Agency has claimed that there are real risks from the online transferring of information stored.
Consumers won’t know who has seen their records, or when. The system doesn’t even have the capacity to track the online accessing of information by individuals within organisations.
In other words, you’ll know a particular hospital or pharmacy has prised its way into your personal health information, but if it’s a big organisation you won’t know who actually did so.
And it’s not only doctors who get access. Nurses, other health workers and even basic administrators can all log in and see everything and anything stored in your record (which may not even be accurate) and you will never know about it.
Frankly, the government’s willingness to sign off on this initiative without a proper information campaign reflects its lost interest in the privacy of Australian citizens. Big government is something we have become used to as the state slowly works its way into all aspects of our lives. Liberals should be alarmed at how a party carrying the nomenclature of the philosophy to which they ascribe has been willing and able to expand government intrusion. But invasions of privacy, whether via health records or voting intentions as carried in partisan voter-tracking software, represent more than big government. It’s Big Brother — an Orwellian principle that technology today can facilitate all too easily.
Peter van Onselen is a professor at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.
