Hundreds of paramedics caught up in Ambulance Victoria data leak

Hundreds of Victorian paramedics have had their private medical data — including drug and alcohol testing results — leaked to the full workforce.

It’s unclear how long the private information was accessible to the paramedic workforce. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Paramedics have been left “devastated” after the private medical information of hundreds of employees and job applicants was posted to Ambulance Victoria’s internal website.

Victorian Ambulance Union general secretary Danny Hill said the union found 42 spreadsheets with the results of pre-employment drug and alcohol testing on Ambulance Victoria’s intranet Thursday morning.

An Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman confirmed the leak, and said the data — which was captured between May 2017 and October 2018 — has now been removed.

“Those affected are being notified and will be provided wellbeing support,” she said.

Mr Hill slammed the leak and said the healthcare organisation should have had the “highest levels” of data safeguards in place.

Union boss Danny Hill said the leaks were devastating. Picture: AAP

“I’ve never seen anything worse as far as breach of privacy,” he said.

“If the system can fail in one place, it can fail anywhere.

“That (this data) is all we know of, who knows what else was released.”

Mr Hill said the 42 spreadsheets contained between about 10 and 20 names each and the union had no idea whether they had been accessible for one day or several years.

“This is a massive volume of information that was accessible to the full workforce,” he said.

“At least 400 to 500 people could have been exposed, we just don’t know.”

He confirmed the union would back any members who wished to take legal action and said he had no doubt some would, with the paramedics he had spoken to “devastated and disgusted”.

“It’s alarming that it’s the union that discovered this, and that they didn’t have checks and balances,” he said.

“We have asked for a full audit.”

He said the leak undermined paramedics’ confidence to come forward and discuss potential alcohol or drug problems with their employer.

“They’re only going to do so if they have faith their information is going to be handled confidentially,” he said.

“That has been shattered overnight.”

An Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman said the documents were “inadvertently accessible on its intranet”.

“Since becoming aware, AV has removed access to these documents and has undertaken an access audit of these documents,” she said.

“The documents were not directly accessible to anyone outside of the organisation.

“We take privacy very seriously and acknowledge the distress that this may cause.”