The Australia Commissioner for Data in Australia, Karly Kind, said that one of the local government departments did not take sufficient measures to protect against “digital doubles”. We are talking about people who have the same names and surnames and date of birth – their data in government bases are sometimes literally confused, reports The Register.
The cindle recently set compensation in the amount of AU $ 10 thousand ($ 6.1 thousand) to the victim, whose records in the healthcare system were “mixed” with information about other citizens with similar names, surnames and dates. Basically, such situations arise in cases where employees who have access to the bases enter the information to the wrong account, or a third -party contractor submits incorrect information about the client.
In this case, the victim complained that, as a result of four mistakes of civil servants in his medical records, information about three different people with the same names, surnames and dates of birth was. It turned out after the Australian Medicare medical insurance system informed the victim that he was close to the payment limit and soon he would have to pay more than usual for insurance. It turned out that some of the campaigns to the doctors of his “digital doubles” were recorded at the expense of the victim.
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The victim filed a complaint back in 2019, and he was awarded compensation precisely because of mistakes from state departments that did not work hard to avoid. Since then, the government departments related to the problem have taken measures to eliminate the confusion and possibilities of unauthorized access to data, however, the cindle is recognized, no technical solutions will allow you to get rid of banal human errors. In addition, the protection measures taken
According to Caind, hundreds of Australians have the same data and their accounts in government bases are often “mixed”, as a result of which not just inconvenience arise, but real harm is caused. For example, medical workers in case of error cannot access the correct data. Difficulties may arise in the financial aspects of healthcare or problems with government services. Although only a small percentage of the Australians can suffer from this, potential harm is considered significant.