11 Jul Canberra Reviews Online Medicare Lookup After Data Leak
Last week, the Australian government discovered that an insider was responsible for leaking Australian Medicare numbers on a Tor trading site.
To address the issue, human services minister Alan Tudge and health minister Greg Hunt yesterday announced a review into Canberra’s widely-used online Medicare lookup, the Health Professionals Online Services (HPOS) system.
Professor Peter Shergold was tasked to take charge of the review. He will be working with representatives from the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, and the public service secretariat.
The media says the system has to be both convenient and utterly secure, and the review team will have to look for a balance to determine its adequacy in today’s context.
The online portal and phone system is used by hospitals and general practitioners to check patients’ Medicare eligibility when they come without their cards. A government press release indicates it is used as much as 45,000 times a day.
Source: The Register
