Protecting privacy of data

With a theme of Protecting privacy, building trust, block by block the week looks at ways individuals can take simple steps to protect personal information.

And the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), which runs the week, stresses that businesses and government agencies are more likely to be trusted with this information when they have demonstrated good privacy practice.

The OAIC says Australians want more protection and its research shows privacy has become more important in recent years, yet trust in organisations protecting data is being lost.

It says:

• 85 per cent of people have a clear understanding of why we should protect our personal information
• 70 per cent see the protection of personal information as a major concern
• 87 per cent want more control and choice over the use of our personal information.
• 84 per cent believe personal information should not be used in a way that causes harm, loss or distress.
• 84 per cent consider privacy extremely or very important when choosing a digital service.
• 82 per cent believe children must be empowered to use online services, but their data privacy must be protected.
• The health sector remains the highest reporting sector for notifying data breaches (18%), followed by the finance sector (12%).

The National President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Trent Twomey, said community pharmacists needed to be conscious of the need to protect the privacy of data.

“We all recognise that patient trust and confidence is a fundamental principle of the community pharmacy sector,” Professor Twomey said.

“We must never take this trust and confidence for granted.

“We must continue to work hard to ensure that patient privacy is a priority in our practices.

“We need to use this week to re-examine everything we do in regard to protecting the privacy of our data including the personal information that we manage on behalf of our patients.”