New Minister to push for smartcard

The federal Minister for Heath, Nicola Roxon [1], has announced plans to use smartcard technology to run a long discussed patient information system - the e-health initiative [2]. This would involve access to patient records by harnessing a unique identifier contained on the smartcard.

The smartcard system, and the Medicare system, are overseen by Minister for Human Services Chris Bowen [3]. The cost of a patient record system accessible by provides within a secure framework is estimated by Deloittes at $760 million over a ten year roll out. This is less than the $1.1 billion suggested for the old Access Card, as the cost of registering the passport like identity checks is not part of the package.

Karen Dearne has a good article on the issue in The Australian IT[4].

Access Card No Way [5] Convener, Tim Warner, is raising the privacy concerns with the relevant Ministers, shadow Ministers and the usual suspects at Electronic Frontiers [6] , the Australian Privacy Foundation [7] and Liberty Victoria [8] - he will get back to the blog with any updates.

The concerns about who keeps what records, how they are protected from unauthorized access, whether the unique identifier is to be available for other projects - the dreaded function creep - are all issues now firmly on Chris Bowen's plate.

Access Card - No Way !

[1] federal Minister for Health - Nicola Roxon's homepage

[2] the website of th federal-state e-Health initiative

[3] federal Human Services minister - Chris Bowen's website

[4] Roxon revives smartcard plan - by Karen Dearne, Australian IT - 16 June 2009

[5] Access Card No Way Campaign was founded in June 2006 and is Australia's leading voice for protesting the Access Card and similar compulsory smartcard ID's from a classical liberal philosophy.

[6] Electronic Frontiers foundation website - dedicated to a free open net

[7] the Australian Privacy Foundation - concerned with privacy and identity issues

[8] Liberty Victoria - the foremost defender of civil Liberties in Victoria, and one of the oldest such organizations in the Commonwealth.