Thursday, 14 April 2011
PCEHR opt-in provision expected to allay privacy concerns. Pull the other one!
Sometimes I wonder exactly where on the globe this LaLa Land pollies live in is to be found.
Because no-one could seriously believe that the e-Health initiative (laughing called the voluntary Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) System) that Roxon and Co are intent on saddling Australia with is not part of a national database which will be packed with inerasable and sometimes error-riddled records.
A system which will allow every nosey parker, from police through to the local chemist, access to someone else's personal information if they decide to class their data crawl as an 'emergency' request.
To make the entire situation a little more bizarre; it seems that if an emergency request goes in on someone whose does not yet have a digital health record in this system (and perhaps never wanted to opt-in) then one is created without that individual's knowledge or consent.
Once created this new record can be hidden from view but can't be eradicated.
Even death won't see your record disappear; so be prepared for the possibility that eventually these records will turn up in the National Archives for your great-grandkids entertainment. Just as anyone can now find out if their dead Anzac grandpa contracted the clap on the way to the front in WWl by looking at a copy of his military record online.
And apparently this e-Health system can be accessed after July next year by Roxon's nosey parkers on the move using iPhone and Blackberry.
The potential for abuse is enormous.
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4 comments:
A system which will allow every nosey parker ... Well actually no. First a record can only be used for medical purposes - exit the cops. Second, only some types of carers will have emergency break in powers under some types of circumstances. Finally, there will be a log of all who looked at your record, assuming that is you decide to have one. Anyone caught with their hand in the cookie jar will face a large fine or prison.
Of course, nothng is perfect. But a lot of effort has already gone in to making this secure, and more is yet to be done before it goes live for some in over a year's time.
You obviously haven't been reading the exposure drafts and policy documents that have been piling up re the national e-Health system.
Police will be able to put in an emergency request for access to a medical history in certain circumstances and, yes, if the person involved had opted to stay outside the PCEHR system then a record would be created without their knowledge or consent.
As yet there is no legislative or regulatory requirement that the person be infomed they are now within the system or be supplied with access details for that record, so the log would be of little use to them.
As for the effectiveness after the fact of any IT activity log - well many government agencies have such logs right now and it has never stopped personal information being improperly accessed, used and sometimes exchanged for money by police and other public servants.
Just look at some of the Australian annual fraud reports required by law these days.
And don't get me started on e-Health policy which will allow other uses for some of the personal information being gathered under the Healthcare Indentifier Number banner.
I am fully for making the government accountable and analysing policy carefully but what a ridiculous and uninformed article this was. The amount of miseducation, unnecessary doom and fearmongering that is going on alongside this ehealth debate is just nonsensical. ehealth is needed, it's going to save lives, let's get on board and try to improve it and make it happen, instead of pulling little Today Tonight stunts like this.
Tim is another chap who hasn't bothered to read the fineprint in e-health legislation and regulations!
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