Australians rush to opt out of the online My Health Record

THOUSANDS of Australians have already rushed to opt out of the My Health Record but the government says it’s secure and could save lives. Here’s what it means for you and your family.

TENS of thousands of Australian have scrambled to protect their health privacy and opt out of the government’s online health record this week.

Technical meltdowns, telephone queues longer than two hours and major privacy concerns have dogged the first few days of the government’s three month My Health Record opt out program.

Some people discovered to their surprise they already had a My Health Record that had been created for them without their knowledge containing sensitive health information.

And a leading IT academic discovered her My Health Record contained wrong information about which doctors she visited.

The former head of the government’s Digital Transformation Agency, Paul Shetler, fuelled growing privacy concerns on Wednesday by claiming he would probably opt out of the record if he was an Australian citizen.

The My Health Record system has been plagued by technical errrors and privacy concerns.

Mr Shelter headed the Federal Government’s digital agency in 2015 and 2016 and says he is concerned the government can access people’s health data through the record for collecting public revenue.

The government had learned none of the lessons of the failed online health record in Britain which had to be cancelled in 2016, he said.

Tim Kelsey who was in charge of the cancelled UK digital health records scheme Care.data is now the head of the Australian Digital Health Agency running our My Health Record.

The My Health Record was launched in 2012 as an opt in system, Australians who wanted a record could register to get one but six years on only 6 million Australians had a record and most doctors were not using it.

The Federal Government decided the only way to make the record work and get doctors engaged was to get as many Australians as possible signed up so they switched it to an opt out scheme.

This means every Australian will have a My Health Record created for them later this year unless they take action to opt out by October 15.

The record will reveal sensitive health information including if they’ve had an abortion, a mental illness, sexually transmitted disease or drug addiction.

Health Minister Greg Hunt says the My Health Record has military level security. Picture AAP Lukas Coch

Health Minster Greg Hunt says the record will “save lives” reduce medication errors and the duplication of medical tests and make it easier to keep track of your health and he assures people it’s safe.

“It is not just bank-level security but the advice from the Digital Health Agency is that it has been defence-tested,” Mr Hunt told reporters in Melbourne this week.

The Australian Medical Association and the Consumer’s Health forum and other medical groups are backing the record.

However, some privacy and IT security experts are not convinced and they are urging people to opt out.

“I will personally be opting out because I don’t think the government has demonstrated the security of the My Health Record System,” University NSW privacy expert Dr Katharine Kemp said.

“There have been major data breaches globally in respect of health data.”

There will be no national television, radio or newspaper advertising campaign informing people about the record nor will there be a letter to every household providing information so people will have to get information about the system from government websites their GP or a public library.

Consumers can opt out of a My Health Record by;

• Visiting the My Health Record website and opting out;

• Phone [phone] for assistance;

• Via paper form.

In regional and remote communities people can opt out though Australia Post or via Aboriginal Medical Services.

Many doctors are not using the record. Picture supplied.

The rollout of the record has been troubled with the vast majority of doctors not using the records and some reporting it crashes their computers, the many documents uploaded on the record can’t be labelled and searching for a particular test result is very difficult.

Very few of the 6 million records created so far have a shared health summary uploaded by a GP and most specialists have not registered to use the record.

Once it is activated, a list of all the Medicare funded doctor’s visits, medical tests and subsidised medicines you’ve taken for the last two years will be added to the record.

The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) warns this list “may indicate diagnosed conditions or illnesses or symptoms and tests”.

You will have to ask your doctor to put a shared health summary on the record which lists your medical conditions and you can put notes in indicating any allergies you suffer.

The record is set on open access so unless you take action to set up a PIN number to protect the information any health professional including your physiotherapist, optometrist and podiatrist will be able to see information about your medications and health conditions.

The government will also share the information from your health record with third parties such as researchers unless you take action to tick a box to prevent this.

The information in it can also be used without your consent for gathering government revenue such as cracking down on fraud, it can be used in court and for medical insurance purposes.

The government says the information is highly secure and you can track who views your My Health Record through an audit process, there are fines of $126,000 and up to two years jail time for people who breach the record.

Originally published as Australians rush to opt out of the online My Health Record