Privacy and Trust — essential ingredients for Health advancement

Health Privacy Breaches and News

Australian Information Site—Reported Breaches and related News

This page keeps a record of some of the publicised reports of privacy breaches and related privacy news that has occurred in Australia. It mainly focuses on health but includes some other privacy news where significant incidents have been reported with other Australian government agencies and ICT industries.

2009

Þ 29 MARCH: ARE you comfortable with life insurance companies asking for genetic test results? I can understand the companies want a detailed health history before agreeing to issue cover. That's business. But delving into a person's genetic make-up is an abuse of technology and, worse, a Big Brother-type invasion of privacy. And yet it is already happening. According to a study published in Genetics in Medicine, insurance companies can dig right into your genetic blueprint., see Herald Sun.

Þ 28 MARCH: An alarming privacy breach by one of Queensland's biggest pathology labs has splashed patient medical histories over the internet. The names, contact numbers and private details of at least 100 patients, and potentially hundreds more, were plastered on the website of Brisbane-based Sullivan Nicolaides. The breach has cast serious doubt on the safety of electronic patient record systems, and angry patients were last night demanding answers. The Courier-Mail yesterday viewed 102 patients' details before it alerted the lab to the security breach, which has been blamed on a processing error. See the — Courier Mail and the follow up discussion.

2008

Þ 8 DEC: A Dubbo Nursing Home has launched an investigation into how a confidential fax detailing an assault on an elderly resident ended up at a media outlet. Correspondence from the nursing home was sent to Orange-based regional operations staff. Somehow the six-page fax report ended up in the office of the Daily Liberal’s sister publication, the Central Western Daily. “I can’t explain how the transmission error occurred,’’ a spokesperson for the nursing home said. “The fax numbers are very different so it couldn’t have been a simple case of accidentally hitting the wrong digit on the control panel. See — Daily Liberal:

Þ 27 NOV: A Medicare worker has been charged with making 23 Baby Bonus claims from Centrelink. A Medicare employee from Perth has been charged with claiming more than $300,000 in false baby bonus payments. Police say he used his position as a Medicare employee to access Centrelink records to obtain the tax file numbers of dead people. See — ABC News

Þ 25 NOV: A COMPACT disc given to an X-ray patient which contained images of three other patients has outraged a Maroondah Council candidate. Mullum candidate Mary-Anne Lowe said she was given the disc last week after a patient, June, showed her the three other X-rays belonging to other patients at Maroondah Hospital. Each X-ray was labelled with the patient's name. Monash University senior lecturer on medical ethics Susan Lee said while she had not heard of a similar incident before, "It sometimes happens with new technology”. See — Maroondah Journal

Þ 07 NOV: MEDICARE bureaucrats will get access to patients' private medical records as part of a new crackdown on doctors who overcharge Medicare for their services. Doctors will have to hand over patient records to auditors to prove they carried out procedures for which they claimed a Medicare payment. The measure is part of a new policy to audit 2500 doctors a year to make sure they are claiming the correct Medicare payments and is expected to save taxpayers $148.7 million over four years. But the policy is being opposed by doctors and is likely to be of concern to patients whose medical privacy will be compromised. See — News

Þ 12 SEPT: A federal government office will investigate the management of disused medical files in South Australia after concerns were raised about a large number of private medical records at a rented home in Adelaide. The former doctor who lives at the house is mentally ill and is about to move out of the house. The landlord is unsure what to do with the files that are likely to be left behind. See — ABC News

Þ 28 JUNE: Investigations are under way into how a shipping container full of medical waste and records were dumped in the grounds of the former Magic Kingdom fun park in Sydney’s South West. The container was discovered by fire fighters at the Lansvale property after catching alight. Police said it was likely the container had been there for a decade. Professor Steven Boyages from the Sydney West Area Health Service said his he had been informed the container held names and addresses of patients. See - LiveNews

Þ 20 APRIL: THE Brumby Government has admitted its $323 million computer system for public hospitals may not protect patient confidentiality, a whistleblower doctor says. The Melbourne physician says patient privacy is compromised in the overdue HealthSMART project. He believes it will reveal intimate information "to literally anyone in the world". See — Herald Sun

Þ 5 APRIL: CONFIDENTIAL patient details are being left on old computers dumped in an open skip bin in a busy laneway at Royal Perth Hospital. Personal information, including patient names and addresses, dates of birth, medical conditions and patient numbers, was accessed with ease by The Sunday Times this week. Sources say up to 500 computers have been dumped in the bin, pending collection, since November. Sources also claimed computers had been sent to auction yards in the past without their hard drives wiped clean. The hospital yesterday denied this, saying the computer hard drives were cleaned, and the computers were collected every day by contractors to be crushed. But The Sunday Times has seen confidential records and has observed computers sitting in the bin for days. See — Perth Now

2006

Þ 23 AUG: Hundreds of Centrelink staff have been caught inappropriately looking up the records of friends and ex-lovers. The privacy breaches were uncovered using specially designed spyware software. As a result of a two-year investigation, Centrelink has uncovered nearly 800 cases of what it has described as inappropriate access by staff to customer records. Nineteen staff have been sacked and nearly 100 resigned when they were confronted with the allegations. Five of the cases have also been referred by Centrelink to the Australian Federal Police (AFP). See — ABC News

Þ 29 AUG: A SECOND government agency has been forced to sack staff for spying on client records, with the Australian Taxation Office taking action against 27 workers for breaches of privacy. The tax office took action against 24 employees over inappropriate access to taxpayer files last financial year, with another three cases detected this year. ATO first assistant commissioner for people and place, Anne Ellison, said 12 of the staff caught spying last year resigned on the spot. Four were sacked, two were fined and six had their salaries reduced or were demoted. Two were ultimately prosecuted for breaches of the Tax Administration Act, with one sentenced to community service and the other fined. See — Australian IT

enquiry @ healthprivacy.com.au