Control access to your record

My Health Record is a safe and secure system that stores your health information. You can take further steps to control your privacy by limiting who has access to your record.

This means that:

• You can invite someone like a close friend or family member to help you manage your record
• You can decide which healthcare organisations can access your record
• You also choose to restrict access to specific information within your record.

Video: Privacy and access settings in My Health Record

Invite people to access your record

You can choose to invite a nominated representative to access your My Health Record. A nominated representative might be a family member, close friend, or carer.

Find out more about adding a nominated representative

Decide which healthcare provider organisations can access your record

You can decide which of your healthcare providers can view your health information by setting a record access code (RAC).

Once you share your record access code with a healthcare organisation, such as GPs or specialists, they will be able to access your record.

The healthcare organisation will then be listed in your provider access list.

Healthcare organisations that have accessed your My Health Record in the past will be listed on the provider access list and won’t need a record access code.

You can remove a healthcare organisation from your provider access list at any time.

Find out how to control healthcare provider access

Control access to specific documents

There are two ways you can control access to specific health documents in your My Health Record:

1. Restricting a document to prevent healthcare providers and nominated representatives viewing certain information.
2. Removing a document so that only you and the person who added it to your My Health Record can see it.

Healthcare providers can still view restricted documents in an emergency.

Find out how to control access to documents

Emergency access

Having access to information in your My Health Record can help your doctors provide better care during an emergency. 

A medical emergency involves a serious threat to your health, life or safety.

Information you have restricted will be available to healthcare providers during an emergency. This enables doctors and emergency staff to access vital health information, such as your medications, so they can provide you the best treatment.

They won't be able to view personal health notes or documents that have been removed from your record.

All access to your My Health Record during an emergency is recorded in your access history which you can view at any time. You can also choose to get an SMS or email if your record is accessed in an emergency.

View more information about emergency access to your My Health Record

Using data from your record for research

De-identified data from your record may be used for research purposes. This data informs policy making decisions to help improve Australia’s health system and provide better healthcare for Australians.

De-identified data is health information that is not connected to your identity.

No data will be shared with any third parties until the framework is finalised in 2020.

Find out more about how data from your record may be used.

See who has accessed your record

You can see who has accessed your My Health Record at any time.

Every time a person opens your record, views a page, or makes any changes, it gets logged in the ‘Access History’ of your My Health Record.

You can also set up notifications to receive an email or SMS any time a new healthcare provider accesses your My Health Record for the first time or during an emergency.

Find out how to see who has accessed your record