NSW Ambulance contractor stole 130 paramedics' personal files and sold them
By Andy Park
A contractor for the Ambulance Service of NSW has been convicted of unlawful disclosure of personal information for selling paramedics' workers compensation files to a third party.
Key points:
- 7.30 understands injury lawyers paid for data
- Compensation files contained sensitive psychiatric assessments
- "Privacy isn't necessarily a trusted part of the culture," former paramedic says
7.30 understands the third party, who paid thousands of dollars for the data, was a group of injury lawyers.
The workers compensation files contained sensitive psychiatric assessments and details of serious injuries sustained by on-duty NSW paramedics.
Ambulance NSW has called the incident "isolated" and said it referred the 2013 and 2014 breaches to NSW Police.
"At this time NSW Ambulance also took steps to immediately notify all affected staff in July 2014, with further correspondence issued to update staff on subsequent legal proceedings related to this matter," a spokesperson for NSW Ambulance said.
"The former contractor was subsequently found guilty and convicted of a criminal offence."
Former paramedic Steve McDowell from paramedic support group No More Neglect said he was "horrified" by the theft but added the breach was "not surprising".
"I have a number of members contacting me that have also had privacy issues with the service. Privacy is not necessarily a trusted part of the culture," Mr McDowell said.
"I would hope that my own personal psychiatric and injury information would not be available to external contractors like this. How do we govern where our sensitive information goes?"
Ambulance NSW said that since the incident they had taken steps to minimise the risk of such actions happening again.
These measures included improvements to case management practice for injury claims, as well as coordinating all contractor engagement to the NSW Ambulance Risk and Safety Division internally, including where external recruiters are utilised.
The NSW Information and Privacy Commission told 7.30 it had not received privacy complaints relating to the matter.
The matter is now before the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
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