(Tabled 8th May 2017 in the Federal Parliament)
The Productivity Commission has made several findings and recommendations to the Federal Government concerning the future rules and regulations for the use of data and information including health data.[1]
Recommendation 5.1 establishes a ‘comprehensive right for consumers’ to have data provided on request or directly to a 3rd party. Specifically, this recommendation ‘would enable consumers to,
- Share in perpetuity joint access to and use of their consumer data with the data holder
- Receive a copy of their consumer data
- Request edits or corrections to it for reasons of accuracy
- Be informed of the trade or other disclosure of consumer data to third parties
- Direct data holders to transfer data in machine-readable form, either to the individual or to a nominated third party.
Where a transfer is requested outside of an industry (such as from a medical service provider to an insurance provider) and the agreed scope of consumer data is different in the source industry and the destination industry, the scope that applies would be that of the data sender. ‘
The Productivity Commission has downplayed and almost excluded from consideration the privacy of patients. To quote legal firm TressCox, ‘Of interest, a common theme throughout the Report is that the Productivity Commission is of the view that privacy is one aspect of data use and while it is important it should not hold back the future of open data.’
[1] Data Availability & Use, Productivity Commission Inquiry Report, No 82, 31 March
