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Australian legislation
This
page
looks at Australian privacy legislation.
Commonwealth legislation
The
Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act
2000 received royal assent on 21 December 2000 and
will come into effect on 21 December 2001.
The legislation has significant exceptions and much will
depend on the development of codes of practice, as it is
based on industry self-regulation. The Act begins the
process of extending Commonwealth privacy legislation to
non-government bodies. Our assessment is that the Act will
be strengthened in future to bring Australia into line
with overseas standards and, more broadly, reflect the
concerns of business and consumers.
Prior to 2000 the Commonwealth legislation (described in
detail in the supporting profile
for this page) was essentially restricted to the
federal bureaucracy) to the private sector. A Privacy Amendment (Private Sector)
Bill
was introduced in February 2000.
The report
of the House of Representatives Legal & Constitutional Affairs
Committee, released mid-June 00, unsurprisingly endorsed the Bill. Like
the legislation, the report was
criticised for lack of attention to EU Data Directive implications. At the same time the Senate Committee on
Information Technologies conducted an independent inquiry
into e-Privacy.
Following substantial criticism of the legislation, the Attorney-General announced
a succession of changes to the legislation. The Bill was
finally passed in December. It provides for a "light touch legislative regime",
built around National Privacy
Principles that set standards for how business should collect, secure,
store, use and disclose personal information. It includes
exemptions for the media and for some businesses and other organisations.
The Act comes into effect in
December 2001. The delay is a breathing space for the
development of industry codes of practice.
background
A thoughtful analysis of Australian and
international thinking about Privacy
in Cyberspace was provided by the Hon Justice Michael Kirby of
Australia's High Court in the 1998 University of NSW Law Journal.
It's also available, along with other Kirby papers, in his Through The
World's Eye (Annandale, Federation Press 00).
Leading academic Graham Greenleaf edits
the Australian Privacy Law & Policy Reporter (APLPR).
Back issues of that journal
are available online.
In Australia major documents include
the Commonwealth Principles
for the Fair Handling of Personal Information and the Guidelines
for Federal & ACT Government Websites.
Other Commonwealth laws contain privacy
provisions relating to information about health insurance claims, data
matching, information about old criminal convictions and personal
information disclosed by telecommunications companies, video
surveillance, telephone interception or 'bugging', and physical
intrusion into private spaces.
detailed info
There's a detailed examination of the Commonwealth and
state privacy legislation in the supporting profile
for this page.
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