Over 900,000 people have told the government they don't want a digital health record created for them.
In July, the federal government opened a three-month window for people to opt out of having a My Health Record created.
Over the past six years the government has invested over $2 billion in creating a digital health record system to store patient information such as allergies, medical history, and medications. But getting patients and doctors to sign up has been a slow task, so the government flipped it from an opt-in system to an opt-out system.
Labor has launched an inquiry into the health record in response to privacy concerns and over who has access to the records. On Monday night, the head of the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) Tim Kelsey told the Senate's community affairs committee that as of September 12, roughly 900,000 people or 3% of the population had informed the government not to create a health record.
The figures were rough because Kelsey said that they didn't include people in regional or remote areas, or those in Aboriginal health services who had opted out via paper form rather than over the phone or on the website.
Kelsey said that 3% was much lower than the 10% forecast.
"What I would say though is that this is significantly lower than the original forecast we had anticipated and in line with other international health care records," he said.
He wouldn't say if he expected it to pass 1 million by November, when the opt-out period ends.
"I'd hesitate to make any forecast, but your guess is as good as mine," he said.
Australian privacy commissioner Angelene Falk told the committee that the government's decision to make the records opt out came at a time of increased public awareness about privacy and security. She welcomed the government's decision to legislate to make law enforcement require a warrant to access health records, and to allow the permanent deletion of records when a patient requests it.
People can also set controls over who has access to your overall health record as well as individual files, and the committee heard that of the 6.1 million people who have My Health Records, just 20,957 have set access controls on either their entire record or an individual document.
Only 136,644 people have set up to receive an email or SMS alert when their record is accessed by someone else.
Since the opt-out period began, 181,000 people have opted in to having a record created for them, ahead of the records created for everyone who didn't opt out by the deadline in November.
Health minister Greg Hunt told Nine's Today Show that the evidence given to the committee showed it could be "the best system in the world".
"This is ultimately about saving lives and protecting lives... This is something that is fundamental, fundamental to the future of health care in Australia," he said. "At the moment 6 million Australians are operating for six years without incident. It has the potential to be, I think, the best system in the world, and in the end it's about giving people access to their own medical records for the first time on their own terms where they have complete control over it."
Labor's shadow health minister Catherine King said in a statement that the government shifting to an opt-out model had fuelled "suspicion and scepticism" about the system.
"The ADHA also said while public awareness of the program is high, nearly half (41%) still don’t know a record will be created for them at the end of the opt-out period," she said.
"This shows the government still has considerable work to do to educate and inform the public. It should begin by delivering on its promise to launch a new comprehensive information campaign."
Adding to concern about the transparency of the health record system, BuzzFeed News requested updates from ADHA about how many people had opted out, but was repeatedly refused on the grounds that the figure would not be provided publicly until the end of the opt-out period.
The agency still has not responded to a freedom of information request from July regarding how many people opted out in the first week alone.
Labor has called for the system to be suspended until privacy and security concerns are addressed.