Coming under the battle cry -Wayne and Diana's employment service", the contentious Web site (www.wdes.tmba.net) sports what it calls The Australian national register for workers that have taken a sickie or claimed compo (worker's compensation).
Businesses are encouraged to use the Web site to -report all your workers that have a sickie or make a compo claim" by filling in an online form. The form requires details of the sick-day claimant's name, date of birth and address, not to mention the date of the claim, type of claim, amount of time taken off work, doctor's name and medical certificate number.
If that's not enough, the site claims there is no time limit for claimant reports to be displayed online for all to see.
Privacy Commissioner Malcolm Crompton said in a statement that he had not -cleared the privacy practices" of the Web site. "Our preliminary examination of the employment Web site suggests that the site does collect personal health information related to employees' sick leave and workers compensations claims."
Crompton pointed out that changes to the federal Privacy Act come into force on 21 December 2001, after which date private sector organisations will have new responsibilities in regard to how they collect and use peoples' personal information.
"A person's health information is treated as particularly sensitive information under the changed Privacy Act. What this means is that generally an organisation will need the consent of the person before they collect their personal health information."
"I strongly encourage any organisation looking to establish a Web site that collects people's personal information to ensure that they are in a position to comply with the amended Privacy Act when it comes into force on 21 December 2001," Crompton said.
Privacy expert Tim Dixon told ZDNet Australia in an earlier interview that health is an area where people are particularly concerned with the sensitivity of information. -The whole privacy issue is concerned with the consent of individuals and giving them control of what is done with it [their health information]."
According to Dixon, research recently carried out by the office of the Privacy Commissioner revealed the general public as actively saying there should be a process for obtaining consumer consent with regards health information being distributed online.
-The consumer must feel confident that there is adequate protection in place," he said.
Neither Wayne nor Diana could be contacted for comment. However, a message on the Web site says: -This register will help business to employ workers that will not try to flaunt the system...Prolific sickie and compo claimers are costing small business millions of dollars each year, we believe it is time to weed out the trouble makers."
