Illustration: Andrew Dyson. WHY is health privacy so important to people? Britons are reportedly shocked by the invasion of former prime minister Gordon Brown's privacy when his son's health information was allegedly ''blagged'' and published. The Sun has denied accessing the family's medical records without consent and says the story came from a member of the public whose own son has cystic fibrosis and who merely wanted to raise awareness. The Cystic Fibrosis Trust, correctly in my opinion, questioned the decision to publish the information regardless of motivation, saying: ''The release of any medical information to the media or anyone else is a decision for patients or, in the case of children, their parents to make.''
In Victoria we have two separate laws governing information privacy, the Information Privacy Act and the Health Records Act. These laws work concurrently. The Information Privacy Act is administered by the Privacy Commissioner and protects information in the public sector and the Health Records Act is administered by the Health Services Commissioner and protects health information.
When the legislation was passed, the Parliament of the day took the view that our health information is different from other information because it can be extremely sensitive, intimate and prone to misuse for discriminatory purposes. People should be able to reveal intimate details to their health service providers and other organisations trusting their confidentiality will be respected.
Health records are owned by the doctor who created them or to the organisation they work for depending on the contractual agreement, but people do have a legal right to get copies of or inspect records which contain their health information. Organisations that collect our health information must ensure the information is secure, up to date and accurate and is not disclosed without the consent of the person it is about.
It is also important that health information is disposed of securely. In one disturbing case, my office had reports of medical records containing people's names and revealing HIV and hepatitis C status found blowing in the wind in a supermarket car park. A doctor who had taken the files home nipped into the supermarket on the way home. His children thought the records would make good paper planes, and so they did. The hospital is now much more careful about protecting the security of the sensitive information of which it is the custodian.
Many people also don't realise that the media are exempt from privacy laws in connection with their news activities. Privacy is not absolute and there is a balancing act between making sure the right information gets to the right people at the right time, hence the importance of press freedom. The public has a right to be told what is going on in government and society and accountability is, in some cases, more important than individual rights to privacy.
While the media are exempt from privacy laws, they have a corresponding ethical obligation to treat people's health information sensitively. The media are not exempt from receiving information unlawfully. Privacy is a legal concept whereas confidentiality is an ethical obligation which involves making moral judgments. This has been the case at least since the 5th century BC, when Hippocrates included in his Oath: ''All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.''
The decision to publish someone's health information says a lot about the values of the publishing organisation. There is a world of difference between publishing details of an innocent child's health and that of ''The Human Headline'', who presumably gave his consent.
When I was a girl I used to love sitting on my parents' bed while they sipped their chicory coffee and listened to Newsbeat on 3UZ. This Sunday morning program reported from the scenes of accidents that had occurred the previous night. Microphones would be thrust into the groaning faces of injured drunks, who would respond to the inevitable question, ''How do you feel?'' with, ''How the f--- do you think I feel?''
I don't believe such a program would be so popular today, although I remember my father once shocking me by declaring, ''If Henry Bolte decided to hold a public hanging at the MCG tomorrow, thousands of people would turn up to watch.''
There is an understandable curiosity about health stories but most people draw the line at media invasions of health privacy. Many were appalled by Channel Seven's treatment of private rehabilitation records of footballers ''found'' outside a rehabilitation clinic. So the disgust directed at the Murdoch press with respect to a politician's family or children's health information being published is hardly surprising, and thank goodness for that. Accountability does not require this kind of exposure and freedom of the press is a privilege that must be respected and used responsibly.
Beth Wilson is the Health Services Commissioner for Victoria.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/contributors/an-unhealthy-obsession-20110717-1hk0t.html#ixzz1SQjZdjF5
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