Barry Young, a former IT worker for New Zealand Health, was arrested and charged Sunday for sharing public vaccination data while officials “work to confirm the full extent” of his offences.The 56-year-old allegedly “misused” and “disclosed” confidential COVID-19 vaccination information by accessing a computer system for dishonest purposes, police told local news outlet 1News. The medical clinic Young belonged to, Te Whatu Ora, was promptly issued an injunction preventing “any publication of the data,” but the data was reportedly already published on a foreign website. Facing up to seven years in prison, Young appeared in Wellington District Court Monday morning for a bail hearing. Judge Andrew Nicholls granted him bail from 1 p.m. Tuesday afternoon. .New Zealand Health chief executive Margie Apa said government officials are “urgently dealing with” the “unauthorized disclosure and misuse of data by one of its staff members.”“From what we have established to date, the individual downloaded a large amount of vaccine-related information. We are still working to confirm the full extent of this activity,” Apa continued. “We sought and were granted an injunction through the Employment Relations Authority that prevents any publication of the data to ensure that we can take all steps to protect the privacy of individuals.”Apa completely denied there was any truth to Young’s claims. “What this individual is trying to claim about vaccines is completely wrong and ill-informed and their comments demonstrate this. The person has no clinical background or expert vaccine knowledge and appears to be trying to spread misinformation,” she said. “We take the security of our data very seriously and are extremely disappointed at this gross breach of trust by this individual and his alleged involvement in spreading harmful misinformation.”.Former UK politician Jim Ferguson said Young, “disheartened by what he perceives as critical flaws in the national vaccination program,” took a “courageous stand.”“He accessed confidential COVID-19 vaccination data, not for personal gain, but driven by a moral imperative to reveal truths hidden from the public,” Ferguson wrote. "(Young) discovered inconsistencies and hidden information in New Zealand's COVID-19 vaccination data” and “alarmed by the potential public health implications, he decided to act.”.Just days before the arrest, Young revealed the data, which is anonymized, on video sharing platform Rumble alongside New Zealand politician Liz Gunn. The data was also utilized by researcher Steve Kirsch, who has been outspoken about the vaccines and his “mother of all revelations” about the “deadliness” of COVID-19 vaccines," per Science-Based Medicine. Kirsch exposed “record-level data” from New Zealand on Thursday that reportedly shows COVID-19 vaccines have killed more than 10 million people worldwide, the outlet reported. The Kirsch report was transparent about using data illegally obtained from a “whistleblower."
