RESOURCES · PRIVACY
Ambient Scribe Privacy Guidance for Australian Clinics
The practical privacy questions to ask before adopting an AI medical scribe, the general Australian regulatory context, and where to verify MedTalk AI's own policies.
What this guide covers
An ambient AI scribe listens to a clinical consultation and turns it into a structured note. That means it handles some of the most sensitive data a practice holds: patient health information, and often a recording of the consultation itself. Before a clinic adopts one, it is reasonable to ask exactly how that data is collected, where it is processed, who can see it, how long it is kept, and who is responsible if something goes wrong. This guide sets out the practical questions to ask any vendor, the general Australian privacy framework those questions sit under, and, separately, what MedTalk AI's own published policies say.
Practical questions to ask any AI scribe vendor
These apply to any ambient AI scribe, not only MedTalk AI. A vendor that cannot answer them clearly and in writing is worth treating with caution.
- 1Consent: How is patient consent obtained before a consultation is recorded? Is there a prompt built into the workflow, or is it left entirely to the clinician to remember and document separately?
- 2Hosting: In which country or region is audio, transcript, and note data stored and processed? Is any of it processed by infrastructure or sub-processors outside Australia, and if so, under what safeguards?
- 3Access: Who, inside the vendor's organisation, can access identifiable patient data, and under what circumstances? Is access logged and auditable?
- 4Retention: How long is the raw audio recording kept before it is deleted? How long are the transcript and generated note retained, and who controls that retention period, the clinic or the vendor?
- 5Deletion: Can a clinic or an individual patient request deletion of their data, and how quickly is that request actioned? Is deletion irreversible?
- 6Model training: Is any consultation data used to train or improve the vendor's AI models, and if so, is it de-identified first, and can a practice opt out?
- 7Provider responsibilities: Who is contractually responsible if there is a data breach, an AI-generated note contains an error that reaches the clinical record, or a sub-processor mishandles data? Is this set out in a Data Processing Agreement?
The general Australian privacy framework
This section is general regulatory background, not a description of any specific product. In Australia, handling of patient health information by a private-sector healthcare provider is generally governed by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) it sets out, which are regulated by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).
- Health information is treated as "sensitive information" under the APPs, which generally requires consent for its collection.
- APP 8 governs cross-border disclosure: a practice remains accountable for personal information it discloses to an overseas recipient, including a cloud vendor or AI provider, unless a specific exception applies.
- APP 11 requires reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, and to destroy or de-identify it once it is no longer needed.
- State and territory health records legislation can impose additional obligations on top of the Privacy Act, depending on where a practice operates.
This is a general summary, not legal advice. A practice should confirm how these obligations apply to its own circumstances, and consult OAIC guidance or its own legal counsel where needed.
What MedTalk AI's published policies say
The following reflects MedTalk AI's own published policy pages, kept separate from the general guidance above so it is clear which claims are MedTalk-specific and where to go to verify them.
- Audio is securely stored for up to 24 hours to support transcription, then permanently and irreversibly destroyed. See AI Clinical Safety.
- Named Entity Recognition (NER) is used to identify and strip personally identifiable information before data reaches any language model layer. See AI Clinical Safety.
- MedTalk AI maintains 100% Australian sovereign data residency, hosted in AWS and Azure Sydney and Melbourne regions only, with no offshore transfer. See Data Sovereignty.
- MedTalk AI supports Essential Eight-aligned security controls, and its IRAP assessment is in progress (not yet completed). See Security and Clinical AI Standards.
- A subprocessor register and full cross-border transfer detail are maintained internally and are being progressively published. See Data Sovereignty for current status.
For a Data Processing Agreement, or any question about how a specific deployment would be configured, contact legal@medtalk.co.
Contact
Privacy / legal enquiries: legal@medtalk.co
Security & compliance: support@medtalk.co