Ok, so Boag leaked the details to Walker, who then provided it to media. This is now established (and horrifying).

However, how did Boag, as merely CEO of the Helicopter Rescue Trust, get hold of confidential medical files?

We have a long history in NZ of skating by on informal practices that rely on personal relationships (ie behaviours of such things as data-handling as opposed to the more formal written rules), reliant on the character of the individuals involved, rather than formal restrictions.

Rather than this being an prompt to ask questions of the integrity of the likes of Boag and Walker (though that should indeed be), it is also really important to ask questions of the policy and procedures around data handling (were they particularly lax at the Trust, or just ...

… following accepted normative practice that may be present elsewhere in other organisations).

If we focus too much on the personalities and ethics of Boag & Walker, to merely see them as political scalps, we possibly lose sight of systemic issues around such things as privacy (I’m thinking about the systemic findings around such things as The Unfortunate Experiment).