The Department of Human Services fields thousands of requests
for Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and Medicare Benefits
Schedule (MBS) data from state and federal policing agencies each
year, complying with the vast majority of them.
The information released can, if detailed enough, paint a
picture of a person's medical history, including, for example,
any history of mental health issues, HIV, abortion or sexually
transmitted diseases.
No warrant required
And unlike
My Health Record, no warrant or court order is needed for the
Department to release the information. Instead, it uses its own
internal guidelines to decide how it will respond to a police
request. These guidelines, which were created more than a decade
ago, have not been updated and are not available to public.
