Dan Andrews accused of quietly compromising patient privacy

Legal, privacy and data security experts have seized on the Andrews government’s intention to quietly create digital medical records for millions of Victorians without their explicit knowledge or consent, accusing it of acting in bad faith and treating patients “with contempt”.

Earlier this month, the government reintroduced a bill to create a centralised database of the private medical information of every person who has used the state’s public health system in the past three years, resisting pressure to provide patients with an option to opt out of the scheme.

Few modifications have been made to the controversial bill, the first iteration of which was unveiled with little fanfare in late 2020 with a view to removing barriers to data sharing between health providers. Its stated aim was to improve efficiency measures across the public health system and, by extension, health outcomes.