Voluntary medical and emergency information:

The Access Card Consumer and Privacy Taskforce released its second discussion paper, Voluntary Medical and Emergency Information, on 21 February 2007. The discussion paper examines the potential for the ‘personal’ area of the chip on the proposed Human Services Access Card to be used by the card holder for emergency medical information. PIAC’s submission on this issue calls for caution on this issue as there are already existing, well-understood mechanisms for communicating emergency medical information that do not rely on technology. PIAC raises concerns about the costs of such a system and the very real potential that these costs would be borne directly by card holders.