Australia: Smart-card privacy warning for patients
Smart-card privacy warning for patients
Article published at The Australian by Adam Cresswell, Health editor
February 22, 2007
PATIENTS have been warned to be careful about loading health information on to the federal Government's proposed Access smart card, after an official taskforce looking into the card's uses warned of potential privacy breaches.
The Access Card Consumer and Privacy Taskforce yesterday called on the Government to reiterate that the card was not an electronic health record.
The taskforce set up by the Government to sort out how the card should operate said in a discussion paper released yesterday that cardholders who chose to put health information on the card's chip "must accept they are putting sensitive personal information, effectively, into the public domain".
The card is designed to replace the existing Medicare card and up to 16 other magnetic-stripe cards that give access to a range of health and other benefits, such as Centrelink and veterans' payments. The Government claims it will save $3billion in fraud over 10 years.
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