HTI joins with 25 community groups and experts to call for urgent reform of the Privacy Act
Media release
This week’s revelation that the Australian Federal Police has continued to use facial recognition technology, without effective legal guardrails, reinforces the urgent need to reform Australia’s privacy law.
In an open letter released today, HTI joins with over 25 organisations calling on the Albanese Government to act.
The signatories to the letter include leading privacy experts, digital rights advocates, human rights lawyers, and consumer and financial counselling organisations.
Australian privacy law is dangerously out of date. The increasing use of new technology, like artificial intelligence (AI) and facial recognition technology, fed by our personal information, means our current laws fail to protect Australians from harm
Dr Kate Bower, HTI Fellow
Last month the Albanese Government committed to introducing privacy protections fit for the modern digital age, by agreeing to most of the recommendations in the Attorney-General’s Department Privacy Act Review Report. More than 10 months after the Government received this report, there is still no draft legislation.
“Privacy is a human right, and every further day of delayed reform is another day that Australians are at risk of harm,” says Bower.
“As our personal data is being harvested at an industrial scale, we are also seeing other real-world harms. Anyone affected by a data breach, such as thousands of Optus and Medibank customers last year, faces a serious risk of being scammed and having their identity stolen. We’re also seeing a rise in targeted advertising of gambling and alcohol to at-risk people and children, and real estate agents over-collecting personal information. This issue affects everyone.”
“This week, we saw again the dangers of unregulated facial recognition technology, with the Australian Federal Police admitting in Senate Estimates that staff have accessed controversial face-matching platform PimEyes. Invasive surveillance technologies like facial recognition technology are proliferating in a regulatory vacuum. It’s time for the government to act,” says Bower.
We need privacy reform now.
Dr Kate Bower, HTI Fellow
The joint open letter calls for urgent action on these recommendations:
Modernising the definition of ‘personal information’ so more of our data is protected.
Ensuring businesses only collect and keep the data we want to share by establishing a fair and reasonable use test.
Giving regulators the resources and powers they need to enforce the law.
Applying the Privacy Act to all businesses, regardless of size.
Introducing clear rules and guardrails for high-risk technologies that significantly impact human rights, such as facial recognition technology.