Pirate Party Australia supports moves by Australian Citizens to opt out of the Federal Government’s MyHealth Record System. Many flaws within the system have been exposed by the Australian media since the Opt Out period began on 16 July, 2018.

While Pirate Party Australia supports a national system of electronic health records in principle, the MyHealth Record systems fails to provide the basic privacy safeguards that should be enforced for such a system, combined with a mandatory Opt Out system rather than Australian Citizens being asked to opt in.

“The MyHealth Record system as it was initially rolled out looks like a lazy and poorly thought out IT project,” stated Pirate Party President Miles Whiticker. “This is a continuation of the Federal Coalition Government’s shocking record on IT infrastructure and privacy matters. It should only ever have been an Opt In system,” Miles continued, “and while we understand that the issue has since been rectified, that initially Australian Law Enforcement Agencies would not have required a warrant or court order to access the information held on MyHealth Record is concerning to Pirate Party Australia and should be to all privacy advocates.”

“Pirate Party Australia would encourage all Australian Citizens to opt out of MyHealth Record before the current 15 October 2018 deadline.”

How to opt-out of My Health Record, courtesy of the Australian Privacy Foundation:

Go to this website and follow the instructions.

You will need your Medicare card or a Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) card; and one of the following forms of current Australian identification:

• Driver’s license, or
• Passport, or
• ImmiCard

If you don’t have these, but still want to stop a My Health Record from being automatically created, you can call the Help line on 1800 723 471.

Further information may be found in our policy statement: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Platform#Health