The bureaucrat overseeing My Health Record presided over a disaster-plagued national health record system in the UK, and has written passionately about his belief that people have no right to opt out of health records, or to stay anonymous.
Tim Kelsey is a former British journalist who moved into the electronic health record business in the 2000s. In 2012, he was appointed to run the UK government’s national health record system, Care.data, which was brought to a shuddering halt in 2014 after widespread criticism over the sale of patients’ private data to drug and insurance companies, then scrapped altogether in 2016. By that stage, Kelsey had moved to Telstra in Australia, before later taking a government role. There was considerable criticism about the lack of information around Care.data, and over 700,000 UK people opted out of the system.
Kelsey has in the past vehemently opposed allowing people to opt out — the exact model he is presiding over in Australia. In a 2009 article, “Long Live The Database State”, for Prospect, Kelsey wrote:
People should be allowed to share their personal data with whom they wish, be it a small charity or a giant like Google. But no one who uses a public service should be allowed to opt out of sharing their records.
For Kelsey, this was necessary for effective health services.
If we want to have good public services, we are going to have to trust them with our data.
Kelsey also expressed his opposition to the anonymisation of data, even of the most personal kind.
Nor can people rely on their record being anonymised — at the moment sexual health services can be anonymous, and as a result there are almost no measures of performance in that sector.
Kelsey’s vision was of a vast state apparatus collecting, consolidating and distributing private information to enable an interventionist state.
Data sharing must be made easier, first by removing the legislative obstacles to sharing government databases… Public services should be able to predict who is most likely to want to give up smoking, be at risk of diabetes or play truant from school. Armed with such data the public sector could intervene earlier, prevent problems and ultimately save money.
Moreover, he stated others should have access to data.
More should be done to encourage businesses and charities to turn this data into things that people can use — from websites rating GPs to maps of local crime.
For Kelsey, concerns about civil liberties were overblown.
The small risks of a government holding data on citizens are greatly outweighed by the potential benefits.
At ADHA, Kelsey is doing little to fix his reputation for controversy. On Saturday, ADHA released an extraordinary 1000-word attack on News Corp health journalist Sue Dunlevy who correctly pointed out the strong risk to privacy in the My Health Record system. The statement repeatedly criticised Dunlevy, accusing her of “dangerous fearmongering” and being “misleading and ignorant”.
Dunlevy had rightly noted the lack of any effective information campaign about My Health record (exactly the criticism made of Care.data), prompting ADHA to boast of its $114 million campaign at Australia Post shops, Department of Human Services “access points” and letters to health practitioners. It makes you wonder why even News Corp’s Janet Albrechtsen said she’d never heard of My Health Record until last week.
Strange that Kelsey, a Murdoch journalist in his past life, would think it’s an effective communication strategy for a government agency to launch a 1000-word spray at one of News Corp’s best journalists.
Why do the Australian public service and Australian company’s continually employ these opinionated foreign puss bags who have no idea of what the Australian public and/or taxpayer want from their service providers. I doubt this person has any experience of any form of medical practice/ service anywhere; regardless in remote, regional communities. And yet we are to believe he’ll know whats best?
What this health department scheme should have instead focused on is promoting people taking responsibility of their own health records via default sharing of medical results, between practitioners and their patients/clients / CON$UMER$, (definition dependent on weather your medically or economically biased) .
Currently its a load of sneaky ratfucker data gathering disguised as helpful to the public when they are barely made aware of its existence.
A lot of money has been wasted on this type of ICT, with the presumed goal of reducing employment among the tax paying public whose money it is to begin with, great fucking idea.
I totally agree NgGJB
Didn’t you read the article, he’s worn out his welcome in the UK , so now he’s
hiding in the colonies
I read the article uxob
I clicked on this comment because I didn’t know what an uxob is. Just scrolling through the comments it appears a lot of the people virulently against myhealth have weird pseudonyms. So anonymity is important for them here too. But sometimes I think people need to own up to their own stuff more.
Exactly Andrea, why hide behind a stupid screen name?
I’ve opted out because the government can’t be trusted to keep our information safe.
Hi Andrea, I only occasionally post on the Crikey blogs but the responses can be quite aggressive in the event you say the ‘wrong’ thing. Not quite the aggro and the bullying of the Terror but I still don’t want people knowing who I am.
Is Andrea your real name? Could we have your surname and address to verify?
Or does it not really matter what username people use?
Reflections of “They’re erudite – they must be right” – a perceived “loose thread which when pulled at will unravel a point” you don’t agree with, or made by someone you don’t agree with, or even don’t like because of their opinions.
Good work Bernard, thanks
Wow, that’s some serious big brother garbage this guy believes in. And we’re supposed to trust him, My Health Record and our Government?
The idea behind the My Health Record makes a great deal of sense and is long overdue as a public health initiative. You make a strong case against the bloke apparently managing the system Bernard. I await a response from the Government.
Good luck with that David.
And it is these sort of people along with politicians and corporates that are paranoid about their data being kept secret. Commercial in Confidence, anyone?