Author: MIMS / Source: MIMS News
The recent health data breach in Australia has forced the Australian Government to pass mandatory data breach notification laws that all health service providers will have to follow.
Under the new laws, all health service providers in the private sector will have 30 days to react as soon as they realise there has been a data breach. Investigating the breach and publishing a statement to notify the Privacy Commissioner of the breach and patients, especially if patients are affected, are the steps that the Australian Government would want private health service providers to take.
Since the government has announced a new opt-out online health record in the 2017 Budget, a deeper look into security concerns will also be pushed to maintain the public trust and confidence in the security of online health data.
According to the Australian Government, it is the healthcare providers’ responsibility to protect personal data from attacks by cyber criminals. Since nothing is saved on paper anymore, the stakes are higher when it comes to online data breach and the type of records that can be leaked.
Embarrassed by the data breach
The new law enforced by the Australian Government follows the latest data breach that has left health service providers red in the face. It has been discovered that since October 2016, a darknet vendor has been selling Australians’ Medicare details.
Patients’ health information was being sold on a popular auction site and Alan Tudge, the human services minister, has admitted that his department was not aware of this data breach. What made matters worse was that…
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