Fast, accurate and complete information flows in the health sector are vital for all of us. If your doctor doesn’t have a particular test result, prescription or diagnosis, it might endanger your safety or even your life. Because of this, medical communication systems have tended to prioritise simplicity and speed over innovation and security. 

Digital communication is ubiquitous: a hair salon sends you text messages reminding you of appointments; movie tickets are booked through apps on your phone – and you wave a card in the air to pay for groceries. Our expectations might be that our health records can be also be swiftly and easily transferred.

“A lot of you cared, just not enough” - Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why. Hannah, the subject of Jay Asher’s young-adult novel, commits suicide. Before she killed herself, she left an anonymous note for her teacher saying she was considering suicide. As the note was anonymous, the faculty did not take it seriously.

What happens to personal information when an organisation closes down? One thing is certain. Don’t follow the example of a doctor who, when closing his surgery to retire, attempted to bury his patient notes on a beach. The tides and the wind had other plans and scattered the files along the beach for all to see.

As a parent or guardian of a child under 16, you are entitled to request health information about your child as if it were your own information. For other personal information, the Privacy Act does not provide a right of access by a parent, but a parent or guardian can request information if the child is either too young to act on their own behalf, or where the child has consented.