CA sacks female employee for tweets about abortion

[Burgey]

https://www.smh.com.au/national/cri...of-tweets-about-abortion-20180729-p4zuar.html

 

[Athlai]

Shake My head dot come dot au

Everytime.

 

[Burgey]

For those CWers who don't follow Australian politics, an interesting sidelight to the story is there's currently a big debate here about a national health records data base and the security thereof. It's an opt out system, so the default setting is the govt gets your data.

One of the more disturbing suggestions surrounding the data base is that certain classes of people can access it without a warrant. The suggestion in the article is the Tasmanian govt accessed the woman's health records and published the fact she's had a termination. If that's the case it's as appalling as it is unsurprising. The federal govt did a similar thing with one of its critics' social security data last year.

 

[zorax]

Pretty poor that someone's social media presence can lead to them losing their job. Although tbf her role was government relations, I can see why it wouldn't be tenable to have an employee for that post who is actively campaigning against the sitting government.

 

[Coronis]

If the health records were shared without consent, as she claims that is awful. Her being fired, whilst possibly having to do with that does sound like there is a legitimate reason behind it. As only shown in the letter (not within the rest. of the article somehow) her title is public policy and government relations manager. Those tweets are very unhelpful towards her job.

 

[Dan]

For those CWers who don't follow Australian politics, an interesting sidelight to the story is there's currently a big debate here about a national health records data base and the security thereof. It's an opt out system, so the default setting is the govt gets your data.

One of the more disturbing suggestions surrounding the data base is that certain classes of people can access it without a warrant. The suggestion in the article is the Tasmanian govt accessed the woman's health records and published the fact she's had a termination. If that's the case it's as appalling as it is unsurprising. The federal govt did a similar thing with one of its critics' social security data last year.

Like zorax, I can see the argument wrt her position being untenable (though not sure that tweets should have led to her being fired - there should definitely be a personal/professional distinction etc.), but holy **** the bolded is terrifying.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Like zorax, I can see the argument wrt her position being untenable (though not sure that tweets should have led to her being fired - there should definitely be a personal/professional distinction etc.), but holy **** the bolded is terrifying.

Pretty it's a crime to even access such records without permission, let alone share them. Been to a few education sessions on this "My Health Record" thing and we get told expressly that any unauthorised access (as in if it isn't a patient currently under your care) will prompt investigation. The patient gets notifications every time someone accesses their data as well, so if someone goes digging in your records then you would know about it.

Not sure if this affects "hackers" though (whatever that word means). I guess they could get around the system, but presumably they could have done that to any classical medical records anyway

 

[Migara]

The records available for the non treating medical / state personnel is in the basis of anonymous records. This is the case at least in UK under NHS, where the health decisions need to be take. Even in Sri Lanka, the registries are available to selected groups, which will summarize data. However the full access lies with the primary physicians who are treating the patient. It's appalling if Aussie system has failed to stick to the standards.

 

[Burgey]

The Australian system isn't fully up and running yet. The concerns re privacy seem to be that your records can be accessed by government agencies and police without consent. The health minister has been saying that isn't the case, however, there are numerous people saying it is. There was apparently an independent report into this aspect of the system which said the privacy concerns were legitimate, however, the report was apparently removed from the parliamentary library.

If what's alleged to have taken place here is true, then it's pretty much in keeping with what's happened with other personal info in the past - namely, it's been leaked by a govt (invariably Tory, and ironically often #freedom warriors in those govts) to cause harm to their political opponents. The Duncan Storrer case is another example.

 

[Spark]

Gonna move this thread to News/Politics but leave a redirect here in CC.

 

[Gnske]

Really put her career on the coat hanger there.

Why even have opinions in 2018 at this point?

 

[Spikey]

she would have been given a seat on the board had she tried to bust a union

 

[harsh.ag]

Govt bullying protester shocker

 

[Spark]

How about the government staffer using an anonymous account to rat on government critics to their employers? What a scummy individual.

 

[harsh.ag]

How about the government staffer using an anonymous account to rat on government critics to their employers? What a scummy individual.

Haha the pure definition of a soul sucking job meeting a scum covered monster

 

[StephenZA]

I can't see the government and Tasmanian cricket getting out of this one.... from the publishing of her data all the way to firing her. And while you could argue that her position created a potentially untenable working relationship, they would have to show that, not second guess before anything had even happened. They would need to show she was now unable to do her job, which does not appear to be the case considering they appear to have jumped the gun.

 

[the big bambino]

For those CWers who don't follow Australian politics, an interesting sidelight to the story is there's currently a big debate here about a national health records data base and the security thereof. It's an opt out system, so the default setting is the govt gets your data.

What is the process for opting out? Who do you contact?

 

[Burgey]

You go online and opt out.

 

[hendrix]

Nah there's no excuses for this. Reading through the sequences of events and the actual reasoning offered by her employer, I cannoy see how CT can get out of this. She should be due an absolutely massive settlement.

 

[Burgey]

She was interviewed on TV last night. When the Tassie govt staffer anonymously outed the first of her tweets, she apparently spoke with the Premier and told him what happened, and he moved the staffer on straight away. Which seems to suggest she was still pretty capable of successfully liaising with the government.