WA Health has suspended the operation of a pager service after discovering that some information had been exposed online on a publicly accessible site
According to 9News, which first reported the leak, both "sensitive" and "confidential" information exchanged between staff at various organizations was contained on the website.
The website that uploaded the information was created by an unknown user, 9News reported.
The information included communications between doctors regarding suspected COVID-19 and “a child protection officer who was concerned about a young person in a treatment facility.”
The state's health department said the leak of such information constituted a breach, but said its own systems remained secure.
"The Ministry of Health has been notified of a breach of confidential data related to the use of a third-party paging service," it said.
“We immediately contacted the vendor and requested that they suspend the pager component of their service until the issue was addressed.”
However, the paging service provider has stated “that services have not been breached.”
"As a result of the breach, the Department also reviewed its own data systems, as well as those of Health Support Services (HSS) – the shared service centre for WA Health.".
"The Department and HSS can confirm that there has been no breach of health data sources. These systems remain secure."
He said that “patient privacy is of the utmost importance to the Ministry of Health.” “We are disappointed that confidential information may have become public.”
