A new patient information system used by general practitioners had to be disabled yesterday because of a risk of data breach . ` ` The ministry understands that patient demographic data has been transported from GP practices in an unencrypted form to an online Medtech hub . ` ` The sort of information that was transported without encryption includes the name , date of birth and gender of a patient . ` ` In light of the potential risk , the ministry has requested Medtech to temporarily disable the services that transports the information to its hub until Medtech issues a fix , which is expected later this week , '' the ministry said . An authorised administrator at a PHO had reported he could see data in an unencrypted form . ` ` Once alerted to the problem Medtech immediately secured the links and started work on a permanent fix . '' ;