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  • TinDrumoscarjiminy@aus.social
    Sep 12, 2026, 12:40 AM

    RE: mas.to/@thecontinent/117253179

    'In response to Namibia’s refusal to share its national health data, the United States will stop funding its HIV-response programme from 2027'

    There's a lot of interesting material in this issue but I'm curious how many folks might believe that the Australian Gvt are not under the same pressure to surrender protected datasets on Australian populations (albeit with a different set of coercions)

    #ausPol #publicPolicy

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Replies

  • Maude Nificentmaudenificent@aus.social
    Sep 12, 2026, 1:20 AM

    @oscarjiminy

    my (possibily) limited understanding is that Australian health providers use international health codes as a matter of course (for example, when a hospital uses the medicare item number to claim payment for a service provided)

    gross data is compiled more or less at the same time (if that is technical enough for you)

    I would be astonished if any personal identifying data makes its way into the national figures we share.
    If the performance of government software e.g. sennalink's my gov is any indication, nobody is getting their hands on much

    aihw.gov.au/about-us/internati

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  • TinDrumoscarjiminy@aus.social
    Sep 12, 2026, 1:26 AM

    @maudenificent i don't know the stats for my health record (or whatever it's called) opt in but dare say there'd be a ton of juiceable data in there, not to mention just the pharma database (they track habit forming meds in particular but *all* scripts are on record)

    nhs likely follow the who system and us companies are gaggging to get access to it (uk gvt were amenable to the sale)

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  • Maude Nificentmaudenificent@aus.social
    Sep 12, 2026, 1:34 AM

    @oscarjiminy

    I know pbs tracks scripts (with good reason), but I would be surprised if personal data is in international returns.

    I understand your concern tho' -- the world has gone to shit.

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  • TinDrumoscarjiminy@aus.social
    Sep 12, 2026, 1:39 AM

    @maudenificent it doesn't need to be personally identifiable to be valuable (nor to be compromising)

    and just to hook into the kinds of things companies like facebook know very well that hasn't really filtered into cultural awareness but the kind of compute power that's currently available (magnified massively by ai but not dependent on it) makes de-identified data identifiable

    i don't mean to suggest that's necessary to capitalisation, only that it's not a limitation and that sale of those datasets (depersonalised or no) constitutes a massive wholesale betrayal by the state on a population scale imo

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  • Maude Nificentmaudenificent@aus.social
    Sep 12, 2026, 5:47 AM

    @oscarjiminy

    I've been pondering upon what you're saying, and have recalled a day (ahem a while ago) I was working in a payroll office, and this dick (sorry, gender neutral terms won't cut it, but feel free to swap this for the other word) was approached by an insurance salesman for payroll details... and said dick blithely handed over an entire, complete printout of names, payroll ID, addresses...

    I said some rude things to him but, y'know, pointless, cos he was a complete dick

    organisations are like countries... sometimes the weakest links are at the top

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  • TinDrumoscarjiminy@aus.social
    Sep 12, 2026, 5:58 AM

    @maudenificent trump admin gave doge (staffed by kids with no public service training, no knowledge or ken of social responsibility, no sympathies for anything or anyone outside their randian fantasies) full unfettered, unsupervised access

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  • TinDrumoscarjiminy@aus.social
    Sep 12, 2026, 6:03 AM

    @maudenificent but also (and i'm getting off track i know) any and all datacentres run by an american entity (wherever the material infrastructure may reside and whatever sovereign legal jusrisdiction may ordinarily protect a given population) are subject to the cloud act which compels any entity subject to us law to both supply/surrender whatever data is in their possesion *and* forbids them to divulge either the demand or the nature of the data they surrendered

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  • TinDrumoscarjiminy@aus.social
    Sep 12, 2026, 6:06 AM

    @maudenificent and the point is this is *already* entirely normalised and that it follows embedded, unquestioned neoliberal logics

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