Nomination for the Australian Privacy Foundation ‘Big Brother Awards’ 2011
BBA2011 WINNER

Award Category: Privacy Defender Categories for a "Smith" Award 

   Name of Winner 

Nigel Waters

Lifetime Achievement – for provision of outstanding services to privacy protection.

  Description of Achievemenets
Award is for consistent and significant contributions to the protection of privacy in a variety of professional and voluntary roles for over 25 years.

Nigel Waters has worked tirelessly for better privacy protection for over 25 years. From 1985-88 he was Assistant Data Protection Registrar in the UK, and then brought his experience to Australia where he soon became the initial Deputy Federal Privacy Commissioner, from 1989 to 1997. All those who dealt with him were convinced of his efforts to bring substance to the Privacy Act 1988 and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. He worked to have the Commissioner’s Office interact in a serious way with civil society organisations. One important example of his success was that he was one of the principal drafters of the Australian Privacy Charter while still Deputy Privacy Commissioner.

Since leaving the Commissioner’s office Nigel Waters has been the most visible and consistent representative of civil society privacy positions to both:
(a) Australian enquiries on privacy and the media, including  
•	Numerous submissions for the Australian Privacy Foundation. 
•	Numerous articles and work as Associate Editor of  Privacy Law and Policy Reporter 1997 
•	Substantial co-authored submissions to the ALRC, NSWLRC and federal Parliament for the       Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre at UNSW since 2006.
(b) International representative bodies, including
•	Roles as Advisory Board of Privacy International; former member of the Executive of the Consumers Federation of Australia 2004-2008. 
•	Input to OECD expert groups, including on Security (1992) and Cryptography Policy (1997)
•	Member of the current OECD Civil Society Advisory Group on the Information Society Participant in the APEC Data Privacy Subgroup, 2006 and ongoing. 
For the purpose of inputs into the APEC and OECD processes, Nigel has travelled to various countries to attend meetings, always preparing detailed position papers and reporting back to the APF and other civil society groups on the outcomes.

As a consultant since 1997, he has advised clients on privacy issues including Australian, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Victorian Privacy Commissioners; Australian Commonwealth and State government agencies; Queensland and Victorian Parliamentary Committees; New Zealand and Hong Kong government agencies; the  European Commission; and private sector businesses in Australia, Japan, Singapore and the USA. Those who have worked with him on consultancies are aware that the advice he gives clients on privacy issues adhere to internationally-accepted privacy principles, and while attempting to find acceptable solutions for clients never accommodate them at the expense of principles.

Few people if any have had the perseverance shown by Nigel Waters in continuing with the usually unrewarding task of writing detailed and well-researched submissions to very often unresponsive Parliamentary and other policy-making bodies.

Evidence of the Actions and References
Numerous submissions by the Australian Privacy Foundation of which Nigel is the principal author.
Privacy Law and Policy Reporter 1997 http://www.worldlii.org/au/journals/PLPR/
Numerous submissions to the ALRC, NSWLRC and other enquiries, from the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre of which Nigel is the sole author or co-author.

Why the Nominee Deserves the Award
Scope
The scope of Nigel’s contributions and impact covers almost every aspect of privacy, from the details of the Federal and every State and Territory data protection Act, to surveillance, credit reporting, privacy torts, and PIAs.

Seriousness
Without Nigel’s contributions, the impact of civil society input into Australian policy formulation on privacy and surveillance over the last two decades would have been greatly diminished. It is probably correct to say that he has had more impact than any other single person in the cumulative impact of his submissions.

 Other Comments 

Nigel was nominated by several people from differing organisations for this award .