Australian Privacy Charter Council
Version of 3 August 2001
© Australian Privacy Charter Council, 2001
This document is at http://www.privacy.org.au/apcc/Submns/JPCNCA0108.html
The Committee may be familiar with the Privacy Charter Council and its role from past Inquiries. Background can be found at www.apcc.org.au
I regret that we `missed' this Inquiry during the period of advertised consultation and have only recently become aware of it. Having had a brief opportunity to review some of the submissions, we are concerned that the Committee may have heard a somewhat unbalanced set of perspectives, and would urge you to take into account the significance of the issues for privacy and civil liberties interests whose voices are not as strong as those of the law enforcement community.
We endorse the submission made by the Privacy NSW and the evidence given on 26 March By Dr Gaudin, and we also share many of the concerns expressed by Ms Salier representing the IIA on the same day. We understand that the federal Privacy Commissioner has also made a late submission which is not yet public, and reserve our position on whether we agree with his views. As regards the government submissions, we detect an all too familiar defect in that the claims for new powers and capabilities are typically based on unquantified and speculative assertions about `possible' risks rather than on hard evidence of actual hindrance to law enforcement. We note with disappointment that the submission from the Attorney-General's Department is almost completely concerned with the Department's law enforcement perspective and hardly acknowledges its other responsibility for privacy. Dr Gaudin's perceptive comment about the check and balance effect of having separate ministries responsible for policing and justice at the state level is highly relevant - there is effectively no voice for privacy and civil liberties interests within mainstream Commonwealth government departments - a role the Privacy Commissioner can only partly fulfil.
Without going into detail, our particular immediate concern is that there should be no requirement for ISPs or any other organizations to keep records of users communications or transactions for a longer period than they are required for commercial purposes (which themselves will be limited by the Telecommunications and Privacy laws).
It is one thing to allow law enforcement agencies access, under carefully controlled circumstances and subject to rigorous safeguards, to records already maintained for other purposes. It is quite another to require organizations to effectively spy on behalf of the state - to retain `intelligence' purely on the basis that it may become useful for law enforcement. To introduce such a requirement would completely upset the balance between privacy and law enforcement in our community and would be a major step down the road towards a surveillance society. We firmly believe that if such developments were fully understood and debated, there would be a major public reaction against them. These concerns may appear to be a minority interest, but history shows that there is much more widespread support for civil liberties and freedoms that unfortunately only emerges when those liberties have been lost. We urge the Parliament to show leadership in defending the essential balance of interests that underlies a free society.
I regret the lateness of this submission in the Committee's consideration of this issue, and that we have no had time to prepare a fuller submission covering other aspects of the Inquiry. Please let me know if you would like any further information about the Charter Council's views.
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Created: 3 August 2001
Last Amended: 3 August 2001
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