Privacy Guide (Introduction)

Development and maintenance of an effective privacy policy is a major challenge for government, business and other organisations. Sadly, it is a challenge that many bodies in Australia have yet to grasp - a failure exemplified by fumbling within Canberra about new legislation and sale of ABN data - and as a result privacy (or the lack of it) will be a pothole on the information highway.

If you are grappling with issues and responses don't hesitate to give us a call about access to Caslon's extensive research and assistance in developing strategies to make the most of opportunities online.

Part 1 - Legislation - of this Guide looks at Australian privacy legislation, the OECD principles, the EU Data Protection Directive and legal developments in North America such as the new Canadian Personal Information Protection & Electronic Documents Act

Part 2 - Organisations - deals with government agencies in Australia and overseas, industry bodies and interest groups such as EPIC, the CDT and EFA concerned with privacy principles and practice

Part 3 - Documents - provides links to major local and overseas reports, papers and other documents about privacy regulation, business proposals and consumer attitudes

Part 4 - Books - has brief comments on a wide range of privacy books by business experts, lawyers, consumer advocates, historians and others

Part 5 - Technologies - discusses tools such as the proposed P3P standard

new and noteworthy

Last month saw release of the report on the contentious Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Bill by Australia's House of Representatives Legal & Constitutional Affairs Committee. The legislation is examined below and in Interface, our online newsletter. At the same time the Senate Committee on Information Technologies announced an inquiry into e-Privacy, likely to result in more substantial criticism of the Government's proposals.

The second week of June saw the announcement of yet another US industry group - the Privacy Leadership Initiative - and the release of a draft of the Platform For Privacy Preferences (P3P) standard. Both are examined in the following parts of this Guide.

next page (legislation)