Australian Government Sued for "Large-Scale, Routine" Sharing of Veterans' Medical Data Over Two Decades

According to ABC News, Australian law firm Gordon Legal filed a class action against the federal Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) on Wednesday, accusing the department of "large-scale, routine" sharing of veterans' and their families' personal medical information over a period of twenty years, while the vast majority of those affected were neither informed nor gave consent.

At the heart of the lawsuit is a health program called MATES (Medicines Advice and Therapeutics Education Services). The program was operated under contract by the University of South Australia—which has since merged into the University of Adelaide—from 2004 until 2024, when the Minister for Veterans' Affairs shut it down following an ethics review.

According to ABC News, Gordon Legal estimates that approximately 300,000 DVA cardholders and their families—including widows and widowers—were automatically enrolled during the program's twenty years of operation. The lawsuit will be filed in the Victorian Supreme Court, accusing the DVA of breaching its duty of care.

Gordon Legal partner Seb O'Meara, who previously worked on the settlement of the Robodebt class action, said: "At the heart of this case is what our own government can do with our personal information, especially... to a quite vulnerable group."

"Many of these people have quite complex medical histories, including complex mental and psychological conditions, and for many, learning that this information was disclosed... has caused them quite severe distress," O'Meara said.

According to ABC News, payment data relating to DVA cardholders—medical information equivalent to Medicare-level data—was sent regularly to the University of South Australia, containing names, addresses, identified medical conditions and treatment plans. Patient identities were initially masked, but if health risks were identified, a "limited number" of staff could identify them and contact their general practitioners. The legal issue O'Meara identifies is that the department did not seek informed consent when enrolling participants regarding who would see their personal information or where it would be stored.

Vietnam veteran Alan Ashmore is one of at least 6,000 individuals who have indicated interest in joining the lawsuit. When he accessed his MATES file under freedom of information laws, he found it contained 25 pages covering his health conditions and prescribed medications.

"If this happened to the Prime Minister's family or the Minister for Veterans' Affairs' family, how would they feel?" Ashmore said. "They would be outraged, they would shut down the program, they would demand that someone be held accountable."

He also questioned the erosion of the doctor-patient relationship caused by the arrangement: "What we have here is a third party wanting to make contact with the veteran's general practitioner... what does that mean for the doctor-patient relationship?"

Veterans' rights advocate Julie Anderson, who was awarded the Order of Australia in 2020 for her service to veterans and their families, has a husband who has joined the class action. She questioned the program's intent and said "the vast majority [of veterans] have never heard of it."

"On the surface it might not seem like a bad idea, but the reality is it never worked that way," Anderson said. "In my view, this was a program set up to give researchers access to massive amounts of data, dressed up as helping veterans."

A DVA spokesperson said the department was aware of the lawsuit but it would be "inappropriate to comment" as the case was before the courts. The department also claimed that throughout the program's operation, all work was conducted under ethics approvals and formal contractual arrangements, including data security requirements. However, on specific questions concerning program governance, consent arrangements, data handling processes and the plaintiffs' allegations, the department did not provide further responses outside of court proceedings.

According to ABC News, the DVA previously claimed the MATES program prevented 930 hospitalisations and 140 deaths. However, it remains unclear how many academic papers the anonymised data was used in, while the British Medical Journal has attached "expressions of concern" to at least two papers based on related data, questioning the consent arrangements for participants.

The University of Adelaide—formed following the merger of the University of South Australia with the University of Adelaide—declined to comment. A hearing date has not yet been set.