AUSTRALIAN PRIVACY FOUNDATION

18 October 2005

Legal and Constitutional Committee Secretariat
S1.61, Department of the Senate
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Phone (02) (02) 6277 3560
Fax (02) 6277 5794
Email: legcon.sen@aph.gov.au

Dear Sophie

Inquiry into the provisions of the Law and Justice Legislation Amendment (Video Link Evidence and Other Measures) Bill 2005

I regret that we have not had time to analyse this Bill in detail – as an all volunteer Association we are more than usually swamped by the volume of privacy intrusive measures currently being proposed and deserving comment.
 
From a cursory glance these appear to be technical/procedural changes, but we are concerned that there appears to be some ‘function creep’ under way – we would urge the committee to look carefully at this and try to ascertain if there is a substantive change in the scope of the DNA exchanges, and/or any lessening of the safeguards.  If there are substantive changes we urge the Committee to request detailed justification so that we can be satisfied that any change is proportionate.
 
We also suggest the Committee asks how the changes relate to the recommendations of the ALRC in its 2003 genetic privacy report Essentially Yours, to which the government has yet to respond.
 
Please take this email as a formal submission to the Committee’s Inquiry
 
Thank you
 
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Nigel Waters, Board Member and Policy Coordinator
Australian Privacy Foundation
Phone: 02 4981 0828 and 0407 230342
E-mail: <mailto:mail@privacy.org.au>mail@privacy.org.au
APF Web site: <http://www.privacy.org.au/>http://www.privacy.org.au
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