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posted by mrpg on Wednesday July 18 2018, @02:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the Ambulance-chasers-anonymous dept.

Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt has ordered an urgent review of Australia's biggest online doctor booking searching HealthEngine which has given hundreds of user's medical information to lawyers. This is how ambulance chasing works in the 21st century. No need to chase actual ambulances, just scan the medical records of people looking for clients. HealthEngine is partially owned by Telstra, which may explain this behaviour.

Prominent law firm Slater and Gordon confirmed that HealthEngine passed a list of potential clients to them on a daily basis averaging 200 per month which netted them at least $500,000 in legal fees. The app collects data such as whether or not the medical problem was a workplace injury making it easy to target potential clients for the lawyers to chase. The privacy policy for the app makes no mention of sharing the information with third parties for marketing purposes. While there is a collection notice, this information is not readily obvious to users many of whom are unaware that their private data is being sent on to other companies.

[...] HealthEngine and Slater and Gordon both declined interview requests and did not respond directly to questions.

HealthEngine said in a statement the company used advertising to "deliver relevant and timely information from our many different advertising partners to our users."


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday July 18 2018, @10:47PM (1 child)

    by sjames (2882) on Wednesday July 18 2018, @10:47PM (#709063) Journal

    Considering that the system crashed under the load of people opting out, perhaps they chould just make it opt-in. They shouldn't have much load problem supporting all 3 people who actively want it.

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:25PM (#709408)

    It was opt in. To justify the 2 billion spent on it they are now going opt out.