Health PID

The Australian Privacy Commissioner has sought public comment on an application for a Public Interest Determination under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) regarding Collection of Family, Social and Medical Histories.

The invitation reflects an application from Dr Steve Hambleton, President of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) for a public interest determination under s.73 of the Act. That application concerns collection by health service providers of third party health information that is relevant to a patient's family or social medical histories, without the third party's consent. In the absence of a determination, such acts or practices may be in breach of the Privacy Act.

Public Interest Determinations 10 (Collection of Family, Social and Medical Histories) and 10A (giving general effect to Public Interest Determination No. 10) currently permit the collection by health service providers of third party health information that is relevant to a patient's family or social medical histories, without the third party's consent.

In essence, the PID covers collection by practitioners of health information from an individual or from a person responsible for the health consumer regarding another individual (a 'third party') in circumstances where:

a) the collection of the third party’s information into the health consumer’s family, social or medical history [sic] is necessary for the applicant to provide a health service directly to the health consumer; and
b) the third party’s information is relevant to the health consumer’s family, social or medical history; and
c) the applicant collects the third party’s information without obtaining the consent of the third party; and
d) the third party’s information is only collected from a person responsible for the health consumer if the health consumer is physically or legally incapable of providing the information themselves.

The PID is thus narrower than the PID 11 and 11A, highlighted in this blog and in a Privacy Law Bulletin article, that empowers practitioners to embark on a genetic fishing expedition.

The Commissioner's consultation paper outlines the issues raised in the application, provides brief background information and suggests matters that could be addressed in submissions.

PIDs 10 and 10A expire on 10 December 2011. New PIDs will have to be made before this date in order for health service providers to continue to lawfully collect third party health information that is relevant to a patient's family or social medical histories.

The ALRC's 2008 For your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice report recommended that new health regulations should include provisions based upon PIDs 10 and 10A. The Australian Government' 'First Stage Response' to the ALRC Report accepted that an amendment should be made to overcome the need to issue PIDs in relation to this matter, although it indicated this should be achieved by way of amending the Privacy Act.

The Commissioner comments that -

Dr Hambleton notes that without a PID on this issue health service providers would be required to obtain the consent of third parties to collect personal and health information on these persons, and notify third parties of the collection of their information. Dr Hambleton asserts this is clearly impractical and could compromise the health care of patients. In addition, if a patient's social, family or medical history is not sought, this could require increased investigation procedures and possibly result in litigation in relation to medical negligence claims. Further, Dr Hambleton is of the view, as stated by ACHA Health in its application, the absence of a PID to exempt health care providers from NPP 10, would result in significant inefficiencies and impracticalities, which would have a detrimental effect on the provision of quality health care.

Dr Hambleton states that he considers it important to highlight the comments made in submissions during the previous consultation process, which noted that standards for the accreditation of general practitioners include the collection of current and accurate health summaries, including pertinent medical or social history information for patient care. Indeed, this practice is considered best-practice clinical care. He submits a patient's social, family or medical history information is collected in an environment of maximum consumer privacy (governed by professional codes of privacy and confidentiality) and clinicians are bound to treat personal information collected in the course of providing a health service as confidential, regardless of the person to whom the particular facts or opinions relate.

Dr Hambleton asserts the collection of a patient's full medical history, including social and family history, is considered best practice and in his experience the majority of patients have an expectation that questions of this nature will be asked. There is also a level of understanding among the general public of the importance of this history in informing their diagnosis and treatment. ...

If the determination sought by the applicant is granted health service providers will be allowed to collect third party health information from an individual, without the third party's consent, for inclusion in the individual's family, social or medical history where that information is necessary to provide a health service to the individual. It will also clarify that third party health information can also be collected from ‘a person responsible' for an individual where the individual lacks the capacity to provide that informational themselves. In the absence of the determination, health service providers engaging in this practice could be in breach of NPP 10.1. Accordingly, the likely effect of the determination will be to permit the established and widely supported healthcare practice of medical history-taking to continue.

The Commissioner states that in considering the application it looked at factors such as -

* the important role the collection of social, family or medical histories from health consumers across all clinical settings and by all clinicians plays in delivering best practice health care;
* the extent to which the practice of collecting health consumers' family, social and medical histories for diagnosis, treatment and care - without the need to obtain third parties' consent - is widespread, considered best clinical practice and generally known and accepted in the community;
* the way in which the risk of harm to individuals through inappropriate use or disclosure of their sensitive information is reduced through the confidential setting and existing ethical protocols which exist for the collection of relevant information about both health consumers themselves and other relevant third parties; and
* the fact that third parties' information, once collected, will continue to be protected under NPPs 1 to 9 and 10.2 to 10.3. For example, NPPs 1.1 and 1.2 ensure that information that is collected should be confined to that necessary to an organisation's functions or activities, be collected only by lawful and fair means and in a way that is not unreasonably intrusive. Further, NPP 4.1 protects the security of personal information by providing that an organisation ‘must take reasonable steps to protect the personal information it holds from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure'.

Cosmology

Reading 'When Cosmology Meets Property: Indigenous Peoples’ Innovation and Intellectual Property' (Queen Mary School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 90) by the great Peter Drahos.

He argues that -

The protection of traditional knowledge by means of intellectual property rights is one of the major work items of international organizations. Less attention has been paid to the relationship between systems of indigenous innovation and intellectual property. Using Australia as a case study, the paper argues that indigenous innovation systems are located within a connectionist cosmological framework. The distinctive institutional features of this innovation system are identified. A key feature is that it is innovation in systems to maintain the health of other systems. The commodity-based nature of intellectual property systems does not suit this kind of innovation. Property rights in land matter to this innovation system far more than intellectual property. Forms of intellectual property based on the right to distinguish one’s product in the market will generally be more useful to indigenous innovation than commodity regimes such as the patent system. Voluntary certification systems can probably be harnessed to much greater effect by indigenous business enterprises.

Drahos comments that -

Asking how intellectual property might protect TK presupposes an item of knowledge. The inquiry takes on a juridical bent, one in which lawyers excel as they investigate which intellectual property box offers the best fit or whether in fact a new box is needed.

A different question lies behind the analysis in this paper. Do intellectual property rights help the innovation systems of Aboriginal people? TK is often said to have a dynamic quality, but there has been little explicit analysis of the features of the indigenous innovation systems that must presumably be responsible for this dynamic quality.

Instead the tendency is to conceive of TK, either explicitly or implicitly, as an existing resource upon which one might draw. Yet the standard economic justification for intellectual property rights is that such rights encourage investment in the search for new knowledge by allowing the searchers to appropriate privately the social value of the new knowledge they find (Granstrand, 1999, p.56; Greenhalgh and Rogers, 2010, p. 32). As mentioned above, there are massive international efforts being made to design intellectual property solutions for the protection of TK. If this were simply about compensating indigenous people for the use of their existing knowledge then a targeted system of wealth transfers might be the best solution. But this option is not on the table. Instead one finds proposals to modify existing systems of intellectual property or to create new standards of protection. The assumption seems to be that intellectual property rights can have positive effects on systems of indigenous innovation. How plausible is this assumption?

In order to answer this question one needs to shift the analysis to the level of institutions that support an innovation system. If the incentive effects of intellectual property rights operate at all, they operate upon actors within an institutional setting. If we are to understand the dynamic effects of intellectual property we have to focus on the institutional system in which actors search and generate new knowledge and not on the abstract qualities of the knowledge that is produced. The generation of useful knowledge and techniques implies a set of institutions working in convergent ways to produce innovation (Mokyr, 2002). A systems perspective on innovation requires one to look more broadly at the institutions that contribute to innovative performance (Nelson, 1992).

Once we shift the level of analysis away from TK and the rules of intellectual property to institutions of indigenous innovation different questions arise. Innovation is often conceptualized in terms of firms developing new products and processes (Greenhalgh and Rogers, 2010, p. 4). Does indigenous innovation fit into this kind of standard definition?

The ethno-botanical record in Australia provides some examples of indigenous innovation that fit with this standard approach. For example, recorded interviews with Wagiman elders show that the Wagiman people developed products and processes. The leaves of the Ironwood tree, for example, were used as a fish poison and the roots provided the basis for the production of a glue (Liddy et al, 2006, 39). Similarly they discovered a method for producing a damper from the seeds of cycas canalis (bush palm) that has the qualities of long term storage and high food energy (Liddy et al, 2006, 34).

However, we will see that the most important innovative achievement of indigenous people lies in the innovation of systems to maintain systems, especially ecological systems. This is a form of service innovation, one that would have been hard for colonists to see, let alone understand. The scale of its achievement has only begun to be mapped by scientists in Australia in the last few decades.

A systems approach to innovation also requires one to identify the set of institutions that matter to innovation as well as the distinctive linkages and interactions amongst institutional actors that characterize an innovation system. In the context of modern economies this usually involves an examination of the linkages amongst firms and their industrial research laboratories, universities and government laboratories as well as looking at the role of institutions such as tax and venture capital markets (Nelson, 1992; Hall and Soskice, 2001). The third section of this paper identifies some institutional features of indigenous innovation, but this part of the analysis should be seen as preliminary. Clearly a full institutional analysis of indigenous innovation is an interdisciplinary quest in which a number of disciplines including ethnobotany, cognitive anthropology and human ecology play a crucial role (Brush 1993; Sillitoe 1998; Berkes, 2008, pp.22-25). From the discussion of indigenous innovation the paper moves to considering the role of intellectual property in supporting indigenous innovation.

The upshot of this section is that intellectual property rights are only likely to make a modest contribution to indigenous innovation and that the intellectual property systems that matter most are those based on rights to distinguish products in the market as opposed to rights to originate products. The property rights that matter most to indigenous innovation are land rights.

a square archaic peg

In Crookes v. Newton, 2011 SCC 47 the Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously ruled that hyperlinking to defamatory content is not inherently defamatory behavior and noted the danger of "trying to fit a square archaic peg into the hexagonal hole of modernity".

The decision emphasises the importance of free expression online but should be interpreted with some caution in the face of statements that it is a persuasive international precedent and the first of its kind.

The Court stated that -

N[ewton] owns and operates a website in British Columbia containing commentary about various issues, including free speech and the Internet. One of the articles he posted on it contained shallow and deep hyperlinks to other websites, which in turn contained information about C[rookes]. C sued N on the basis that two of the hyperlinks he created connected to defamatory material, and that by using those hyperlinks, N was publishing the defamatory information. At trial, the judge concluded that the mere creation of a hyperlink in a website does not lead to a presumption that someone actually used the hyperlink to access the impugned words. The judge agreed that hyperlinks were analogous to footnotes since they only refer to another source without repeating it. Since there was no repetition, there was no publication. Furthermore, in the absence of evidence that anyone other than C used the links and read the words to which they linked, there could not be a finding of publication. A majority of the Court of Appeal upheld the decision, finding that while some words in an article may suggest that a particular hyperlink is an encouragement or invitation to view the impugned site, there was no such encouragement or invitation in this case. In addition, the number of “hits” on the article itself was an insufficient basis for drawing an inference in this case that a third party had read the defamatory words. The dissenting judge held that there was publication. The fact that N’s website had been viewed 1,788 times made it unlikely that no one had followed the hyperlinks and read the impugned article. Furthermore, the context of the article suggested that readers were encouraged or invited to click on the links.

The majority decision by Abella J comments that the net -

cannot, in short, provide access to information without hyperlinks. Limiting their usefulness…would have the effect of seriously restricting the flow of information and, as a result, freedom of expression.

. The Court held that -

Hyperlinks are, in essence, references, which are fundamentally different from other acts of “publication”. Hyperlinks and references both communicate that something exists, but do not, by themselves, communicate its content. They both require some act on the part of a third party before he or she gains access to the content. The fact that access to that content is far easier with hyperlinks than with footnotes does not change the reality that a hyperlink, by itself, is content neutral.

Furthermore, inserting a hyperlink into a text gives the author no control over the content in the secondary article to which he or she has linked.

A hyperlink, by itself, should never be seen as “publication” of the content to which it refers. When a person follows a hyperlink to a secondary source that contains defamatory words, the actual creator or poster of the defamatory words in the secondary material is the person who is publishing the libel. Only when a hyperlinker presents content from the hyperlinked material in a way that actually repeats the defamatory content, should that content be considered to be “published” by the hyperlinker.

Here, nothing on N’s page is itself alleged to be defamatory. Since the use of a hyperlink cannot, by itself, amount to publication even if the hyperlink is followed and the defamatory content is accessed, N has not published the defamatory content and C’s action cannot succeed.

McLachlin CJ and Fish J were more nuanced, stating that -

The reasons of the majority are agreed with substantially. However, a hyperlink should constitute publication if, read contextually, the text that includes the hyperlink constitutes adoption or endorsement of the specific content it links to. A mere general reference to a website is not enough to find publication.

Deschamps J stated that -

Excluding hyperlinks from the scope of the publication rule is an inadequate solution to the novel issues raised by the Internet.

This blanket exclusion exaggerates the difference between references and other acts of publication, and treats all references, from footnotes to hyperlinks, alike, thereby disregarding the fact that references vary greatly in how they make defamatory information available to third parties and, consequently, in the harm they can cause to people’s reputations.

In the common law of defamation, publication has two components:

(1) an act that makes the defamatory information available to a third party in a comprehensible form, and (2) the receipt of the information by a third party in such a way that it is understood.

In the context of Internet hyperlinks, a simple reference, absent evidence that someone actually viewed and understood the defamatory information to which it directs third parties, is not publication of that content. In order to satisfy the requirements of the first component of publication, the plaintiff must establish, on a balance or probabilities, that the hyperlinker performed a deliberate act that made defamatory information readily available to a third party in a comprehensible form.

An act is deliberate if the defendant played more than a passive instrumental role in making the information available. In determining whether hyperlinked information is readily available, a court should consider a number of factors, including whether the hyperlink is user-activated or automatic, whether it is a shallow or a deep link, and whether the linked information is available to the general public (as opposed to being restricted). Any matter that has a bearing on the ease with which the referenced information could be accessed will be relevant to the inquiry.

For an action in defamation to succeed, the plaintiff must also satisfy the requirements of the second component of publication on a balance of probabilities, namely that a third party received and understood the defamatory information. This requirement can be satisfied either by adducing direct evidence or by asking the court to draw an inference based on, notably, whether the link was user-activated or automatic; whether it was a deep or a shallow link; whether the page contained more than one hyperlink and, if so, where the impugned link was located in relation to others; the context in which the link was presented to users; the number of hits on the page containing the hyperlink; the number of hits on the page containing the linked information (both before and after the page containing the link was posted); whether access to the Web sites in question was general or restricted; whether changes were made to the linked information and, if so, how they correlate with the number of hits on the page containing that information; and evidence concerning the behaviour of Internet users. Once the plaintiff establishes prima facie liability for defamation, the defendant can invoke any available defences.

Here, N acted as more than a mere conduit in making the hyperlinked information available. His action was deliberate. However, having regard to the totality of the circumstances, it cannot be inferred that the first, shallow hyperlink made the defamatory content readily available. The various articles were not placed on N’s site’s home page and they had separate addresses. The fact that the reader had to take further action in order to find the defamatory material constituted a meaningful barrier to the receipt, by a third party, of the linked information. The second, deep hyperlink, however, did make the content readily available. All the reader had to do to gain access to the article was to click on the link, which does not constitute a barrier to the availability of the material. Thus, C has satisfied the requirements of the first component of publication on a balance of probabilities where this link is concerned. However, the nature of N’s article, the way the various links were presented and the number of hits on the article do not support an inference that the allegedly defamatory information was brought to the knowledge of some third person. The defamation action with respect to either of the impugned hyperlinks cannot succeed.

Super data breach

I'm following with interest the claims and counter-claims about the First State Super data breach, not least because it's an illustration in my cybersecurity conference paper on breach regulation.

The major superannuation fund manager has acknowledged that there were problems with its security, which allowed a customer (and IT security consultant) Patrick Webster to access financial information about other customers. That information reportedly included full names, addresses, email addresses, membership numbers, age, insurance information, superannuation amounts, fund allocations, beneficiaries and employer information. Mooted legal action against Webster for alerting First State appears to be going nowhere.

The SMH has now reported anonymous claims "by a former IT staffer" that First State "knew of a major security flaw that potentially exposed 770,000 member details years ago and did nothing". The Federal and NSW Privacy Commissioners are apparently reporting.

A spokesperson for Pillar, the fund manager, reportedly denied the allegations with the comment that "It's garbage - we fixed this thing in a matter of hours so why would we sit on it for years? Makes no sense, there's no logic." Pillar dismissed the SMH source as a "disenfranchised employee making ridiculous claims".

Interestingly, the SMH source contests First State claims that the IT system would generate alerts when a member accessed another member's statement. The source reportedly commented that there were "no controls that produce security or privacy alerts", so that unauthorised access would not be detected. That is consistent with the SMH's claim that another First State customer "stumbled across the security flaw while checking their statement more than 18 months ago"

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), as regulator of the super fund industry, reportedly could not comment on the matter because "a secrecy provision in the APRA Act prevents us from" commenting on the regulated bodies. We can and should fix that provision in the public interest.

the SMH points to the APRA Prudential Practice Guide (PPG) 234 – Management of security risk in information and information technology [PDF], which features the statement that -

Controls, commensurate with the sensitivity and criticality of the data/information involved, would normally be implemented where sensitive data/information is at risk of leakage

That Guide could usefully be read in conjunction with the recent SEC guidance noted here.

In the UK the national Information Commissioner has revealed that the number of reported data breaches has increased by 58% on the previous year. That figure is newsworthy but is problematical, given the uncertainty about how many breaches are occurring but are not detected and/or are not divulged.

In a statement earlier this month the Commissioner commented that -

Powers to conduct compulsory data protection audits in local government, the health service and the private sector are needed to ensure compliance with the law, the Information Commissioner said today at the 10th annual data protection compliance conference in London.

Christopher Graham’s call came as figures showed that the ICO is being blocked from auditing organisations in sectors that are causing concern over their handling of personal information.

The only compulsory data protections audit powers the ICO currently has are for central government departments. For all other organisations the ICO has to win consent before an audit can take place.

Data breaches in the NHS continue to be a major problem. Of the 47 undertakings the ICO has agreed with organisations that have breached the Data Protection Act since April, over 40% (19) were in the healthcare sector. In addition, the most serious personal data breaches that have resulted in a civil monetary penalty occurred in the local government sector. Four of the six penalties served so far involved local authorities.

Businesses remain the sector generating the most data protection complaints. Despite this, as reported in July, just 19% of companies contacted by the ICO accepted the offer of undergoing an audit. The ICO has written to 29 banks and building societies and so far only six (20%) have agreed to undergo an audit. The insurance sector has also shown reluctance in this area. Of the 19 companies contacted this year by the ICO, only two agreed to an audit.

Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham said:

Something is clearly wrong when the regulator has to ask permission from the organisations causing us concern before we can audit their data protection practices. Helping the healthcare sector, local government and businesses to handle personal data better are top priorities, and yet we are powerless to get in there and find out what is really going on.

With more data being collected about all of us than ever before, greater audit powers are urgently needed to ensure that the people handling our data are doing a proper job. I am preparing the business case for the extension of the ICO’s Assessment Notice powers under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to these problematic sectors.

Promo

The 2010-2011 annual report of Australian Crime Commission [PDF] echoes the organised crime report of earlier this year in announcing that "Serious and organised crime is an ever-evolving transnational phenomenon". It goes on to explain - quelle surprise - that -

But for all its manifestations, the underlying motivations are constant: greed and power drive organised crime and money is its lifeblood.

This greed has a significant impact on all of us. Organised crime threatens national security, affects our wellbeing and undermines our economy. In monetary value alone, organised crime costs the Australian community around $15 billion a year. Add to this the untold damage caused to communities, families and individuals.

The Australian Crime Commission (ACC) reduces that impact by working with our partner agencies to identify, disrupt and prevent organised crime of national significance.

It does this by bringing people together to defeat, and defend against, serious and organised crime, through effective use of knowledge derived from criminal intelligence.

The report is very much a promo document, punctuated with breakout boxes such as "ACC are making a very positive contribution in the national
security arena by developing good partnerships with key enabling organisations. ACC Stakeholder Research". Only a brave agency would publish statements indicating that our numerous competitors think that we're fat, lazy, stupid, not necessary, egregiously self-involved or otherwise a waste of resources, so I shouldn't be too hard on the self-justification.

From an identity crime perspective the highlights are -

Corsair/Kensai — These long-term joint Victoria Police/ACC investigations disrupted a network of Victorian drug trafficking syndicates.
– In November 2010, Victoria Police members intercepted a vehicle of interest, seizing 127 grams of methylamphetamine, a card-making machine for VICROADS licences and several false identifications. Police charged one man with drug trafficking offences and some 80 other matters related to making, possessing and using false identifications. [p89]

ACC support and membership of the Organised Crime Framework Identity Crime Response Team (a multi-agency identity crime working group) resulted in the Response Team initiating and endorsing intelligence products including:

- a national all-agency Identity Crime Intelligence Collection Plan aimed at identifying current intelligence gaps and defining collection strategies
- an ACC intelligence scoping paper of recent significant identity crime investigations across Australia, aimed at identifying links between crime groups, as well as new methodologies and prevention strategies
- an ACC intelligence scoping paper examining current and future trends in the exploitation of technology for organised crime purposes. [p128]

We helped scope and develop tools to support partner agencies to combat and reduce the impact of complex organised technology enabled crime on the Australian community.
These tools include:

- the proposed National Cybercrime online reporting portal
- a specific Cybercrime Desk and Identity Crime Desk within the Australian Law Enforcement Intelligence Net (ALEIN)
- Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency (ANZPAA) national cybercrime information sharing protocols agreement.

In addition, the Organised Crime Framework Identity Crime Response Team’s work initiated key harm reduction strategies including:

- a national Document Verification System to reduce the incidence of false identity documents
- identity crime victims statements under amendments to the Commonwealth Criminal Code 1995
- support for the Industry & Community Partnerships Project to detect and prevent identity crimes.

We conducted 10 examinations which have provided operational reporting products addressing:

- credit card and EFTPOS skimming (facilitators, organisers and technical aspects)
- organised identity crime in migration and loan fraud (facilitators, organisers and methodologies)
- manufacturing, sale and purchase of falsified identity documents including foreign passports
- the use of telecommunications cloning technology by groups in New South Wales and Victoria — including facilitators, technical intelligence and the identity of compromised equipment (subscriber identity module or 'SIM' and international mobile equipment identity or 'IMEI').

The Complex Organised Technology Enabled Crime (incorporating Identity Crime) Special Intelligence Operation concluded on 30 June 2011. Our contribution in this area will continue under our new work priorities, in particular the Special Operations: National Security Impacts from Serious & Organised Crime; and Making Australia Hostile to Serious & Organised Crime. [p129]

Questions by the ANAO and other bodies regarding the national Document Verification System have been noted elsewhere on this blog. In the absence of information it's impossible to make an authoritative assessment of what's happening at the ACC and whether it's operating effectively.

Enhancement

'A risk profile of elite Australian athletes who use illicit drugs' by Johanna Thomas & Matthew Dunn in (2011) 37 Addictive Behaviors 144-147 argues that -

Much of the literature investigating the relationship between sports participation and substance use has focused upon student populations, with little focus being given to athletes who participate at elite levels. Identifying why some athletes may be at a greater risk for substance use can help in the design and implementation of prevention initiatives. Data for the current study was from 1684 self-complete surveys with elite Australian athletes.

Eight percent (n=134) of the sample reported the use of at least one of the six illicit drugs under investigation (ecstasy, cannabis, cocaine, meth/amphetamine, ketamine and GHB) in the past year. Having been offered or having had the opportunity to use illicit drugs in the past year, knowing other athletes who use drugs and identifying as a ‘full-time athlete’ were significant predictors of past-year illicit drug use, while having completed secondary education or a post-school qualification was associated with a lower likelihood of past-year illicit drug use.

Athletes are part of a sportsnet that includes family, coaches, support staff and other athletes, and these relationships may encourage the use, supply and demand for drugs. The current findings suggest that relationships with some of those in the sportsnet may play an important role when understanding illicit drug use among elite athletes. As education appears to be associated with a lower likelihood of illicit drug use among this group, initiatives should encourage athletes to engage in offfield pursuits which may also help prepare them for life after sport.

The authors comment that -

Athletes do not live in isolation. Even athletes who compete in so-called ‘individual’ sports are part of a sportsnet that includes family, coaches, support staff and other athletes, and these relationships may encourage the use, supply and demand for drugs. In high profile cases where athletes have been found to have engaged in banned substances use, such as track and field athlete Marion Jones, it has been shown that those in the sportsnet are either knowledgeable or actively complicit in the athlete's substance use. As such, those in the sportsnet are now subject to penalties under the 2009 World Anti-Doping Agency Code (World Anti-Doping Agency, 2009), as well as being identified as an important target group for education. The current findings suggest that relationships with some of those in the sportsnet may play an important role when understanding illicit drug use among elite athletes.

Among the current sample, those who used illicit drugs were more likely to be male, older, know other athletes who used illicit drugs and had been offered or had the opportunity to use drugs. Previous research among other athletic populations have found that gender, other substance use, type of sport and personal factors such as sensation seeking and religiosity are just some of the factors found to be associated with drug use. However, these relationships are not simple and are further undermined by the possibility that the factors that relate to “illicit drug” use may differ from those related to “performance enhancing drug” use, and even then, factors may vary. For instance, in discussing why cyclists might engage in doping behaviour, one participant in a study conducted by Hardie, Shilbury, et al. (2010) stated “I'd like to give you one straight answer but I can't. Amateurs do it to turn professional. Professionals do it to keep a job. But then you've also got the high end guys like guys who are winning Tours and are on multimillion dollar contracts are still doing it. You can't say it's for the money. You have to look a bit deeper and say it's probably not peer pressure but pressure to perform and pressure they put on themselves and pressure to win.” (pg. 63).

Identifying as a “full-time” athlete was associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in illicit drug use, while completing post-secondary education was associated with a lower likelihood of illicit drug use. Increased focus has been given to athletes' on- and off-field lives and how these interact. For athletes, career termination may occur suddenly and involuntarily and sporting organisations are persuading their athletes to undergo training and education to prepare for life after sport. This, in turn, may have positive benefits for the athlete while they still have an active sporting career. Price, Morrison, et al. (2010) found that 90% of elite athletes actively engaged in non-sporting pursuits to help lengthen their sporting career; that these non-sporting pursuits provided an outlet from sport; and that 72% of those athletes undertaking work outside of sport or studying believed that this aided their performance. Further research should explore the relationship between off-field pursuits and on-field performance.

Trust me

A previous post noted concerns regarding vetting processes within the Australian government. The SMH today reports that -

tens of thousands of Defence Department security clearances are being urgently investigated after fake information was entered to speed the process, officials revealed yesterday. ... Under questioning at a Senate committee hearing, the Defence Department's head of security and intelligence also admitted that 5000 of those clearances were classified ''top secret''. It is the first indication of how widespread the problems were.

The report goes on to comment that -

Claims that Defence Department employees were forced to enter fake data at the initial stages of the clearances were first aired earlier this year.

Whistleblowers said the fake information was designed to fill gaps in personal histories, speeding up the processing of clearances, which were passed to ASIO for further evaluation.

The department's deputy secretary for intelligence and security, Stephen Merchant, told the committee hearing yesterday about 20,000 clearances might need to be rechecked.

At the May Senate hearing, Mr Merchant claimed the fake entries were part of a monitored process - with agreed fake terms designed to spark attention.

He said the ''work arounds'' were agreed to by ASIO.

The Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, last month admitted that neither of those two claims were correct and said that no more ''work arounds'' would be entered without a formal agreement with ASIO.

However, the Herald revealed that in June several clearances were filled in with fake information despite there having been no agreement with ASIO and defence officials telling the committee the previous month that there was no more need for ''work arounds''.

We can sleep soundly, as Mr Merchant is reported as stating that the investigation is ''well-advanced'' and swill be finished shortly. A very similar article in the Age last month - alas, there's a lot of recycling going on at Fairfax - indicated that Merchant will be retiring shortly.