Submission: Review of the Privacy Act 1988
The Hub has made a submission to the Attorney General's Department in response to a call for input into the review of the privacy act.
This is a joint submission between the Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation and the Australian Society for Computers & Laws.
A copy of the submission is here. Further information on the background to the submission is here
The submission focuses on aspects of the department's questions that intersect with the Hub and Society's research, as listed below:
• Objectives the Privacy Act (Question 1)
• Definition of personal information (Questions 2-5)
• Flexibility of the APPs (Question 6)
• Exemptions, at a high level, and then specifically in relation to employee records and media (Questions 7-19)
• Limiting information burden (Questions 24, 25)
• Consent (Questions 26-30)
• Inferred sensitive information (Questions 35, 36)
• Access, quality and correction (Question 45)
• Right to erasure (Questions 46, 47)
• Direct right of action and statutory tort (Questions 57-62)
• Legislative complexity (Questions 66-68)
We also believe broader questions ought to be asked in the course of the consultation, including:
• whether privacy law should be modelled on Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR);
• whether privacy law can be drafted, or guidance given, to avoid “because of the Privacy Act” excuses for poor cyber security practices (such as requiring individuals to provide identifying information in phone calls to that individual);
• whether privacy law can be better designed to integrate with related and pre-existing areas of governance such as media law, social media regulation, and competition law;
• whether there can be a co-ordinated and more centralised regulatory structure – at present a number of regulators overlap, but often without adequate control or resources; and
• whether privacy law reform can be leveraged to reduce the ability of foreign actors to interfere in domestic elections and politics.