Right to sue if online privacy violated: new law recommended

Stan Beer
Thursday, 07 April 2011 16:38

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Australians should have their rights to online privacy enshrined in legislation, according to a new Parliamentary report. Offenders would then risk being taken to court and sued for violating the privacy of their victims or collecting too much personal data.

A Senate Committee Report into the online privacy of Australians using the internet, released today, recommends giving all Australians a legislated right to online privacy, something which does not presently exist, Committee Chair Senator Mary Jo Fisher said.

'This would mean a person could take legal action if his or her online privacy were seriously invaded,' Senator Fisher said.

'The Report also recommends allowing an individual online user to dictate the amount of personal data that a web service provider can collect and use to target them with advertisements, through a 'Do Not Track' model,' she said.

'Third parties 'track' who we are, where we go and what we do on the internet.  They collect this information to create online profiles of us, a fact of which most of us are blissfully unaware,' Senator Fisher said.

'We are putting more and more of our personal information on the internet, and technology is making it easier for personal data to be collected, stored and moved around,' she said.

'Lots of us 'tick and flick' those pesky online privacy consent forms, unthinkingly paying the price to get to the next internet stage.'

'So the Committee recommends increasing the scope for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to handle complaints about the use of online privacy consent forms,' Senator Fisher said.

'As the Privacy Commissioner said to the inquiry, once we put information on the internet, it is 'searchable, downloadable, reusable, and can be stored indefinitely',' she said.

'Online behaviour and its data consequences don't really have a parallel in the offline world, which makes it hard to 'police' with offline thinking.'

'While we put more about ourselves 'out there', the bad guys are finding the internet easy to disguise their real identities.  This makes it extra hard for law enforcement,' Senator Fisher said.

'Naturally, law enforcement agencies want access to lots of our online data,' she said.

'The Committee recommends there be a cost, benefit and risk analysis of any such access, and the consequent data retention and storage - that access be necessary and the expenses justified and that data be stored 'safely'.'

'Whilst the Committee's 'asks' aren't small, they should be considered by a country which embraces technology in leaps and bounds' Senator Fisher said.