Wednesday, 21 September 2022

 Mr ANGUS (Forest Hill) (14:48): (6540) My constituency question is to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. Minister, what safeguards are in place to protect private medical information that is sent to the recently sold off VicRoads for the purpose of obtaining a disabled parking permit from being misused or distributed to a third party? I recently had a constituent contact me about the renewal of her disabled parking permit. She expressed her concerns that her private information, including her medical information, is required to be sent to VicRoads, now recently privatised. She also raised other issues regarding the renewal of her disabled parking permit, in particular the fact that the default communication method specified required the applicant to have both an email account and a mobile telephone number. This constituent, like many of my older constituents, does not have a mobile telephone. This is a problem, as the response she received from the City of Whitehorse regarding her application stated the following:

It is a requirement that you have a mobile phone number in order to lodge the application. If you don’t own a mobile phone please ask a family member, friend or carer to help you with your application. All future notifications about your permit will be sent to this mobile number.

This means that her private medical information not only will be shared with VicRoads but will also be sent to a third party’s mobile telephone. Surely there has got to be a better way to accommodate people.