Working to protect your private information

Caring for your privacy

Many organisations, both private and government, hold personal information about you. The Privacy Act 1993 protects you from the misuse of this information and ensures that you have rights to access and amend the information that is held about you.

Organisations also have a responsibility to protect this information from loss, disclosure or misuse. However, there is no legislation in place determining exactly how this should be carried out by medical professionals. In other words, it is the decision of individual pharmacies and doctors how they store and backup information.

Who is storing information about you?

In order to provide you with high quality service, and to meet their obligations to the Ministry of Health, medical businesses keep information about your prescriptions and medical history. As a matter of practice, they do not keep any information other than that which is absolutely necessary to meet your needs as a customer. This information is stored in computer systems, which can only be accessed by authorised staff.

It is important to understand that the information that some organisations hold may be quite confidential. Your doctor and pharmacy store private information about you and your family, including your medical history and the medications you take. Many of the medical providers that hold this information are taking steps to improve security.

How your information is protected

Nexus Data Security is working alongside the medical profession to make available a service that provides added security for your personal information. To ensure that pharmacies and doctors never lose important prescription and medical history information, we backup their computer systems on a daily basis. The backup is transferred securely offsite using state-of-the art technologies and high levels of data encryption. The information goes directly to a secure, monitored data centre in an undisclosed location. This protection ensures that your private information can never be lost, stolen or misused.

Who uses this system?

Many doctors, pharmacies and other medical providers are using the Nexus Backup System. However, it is optional for them to do so. If you would like to know if your medical provider is using the system, you would need to enquire with them directly. We cannot disclose this to you.

It is important to understand that medical providers who use Nexus are not required by law to offer this level of protection, however as part of their ongoing commitment to their customers, they choose to.