Page 2277 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 4 August 2021
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These amendments promote the right of protection of family and children and the right to protection from torture and cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment under the Human Rights Act 2004 by increasing the protection of children and reducing the opportunities for offenders to reoffend.
The amendments engage and limit the rights to privacy of people convicted of the commonwealth offence of possessing a childlike sex doll in a justifiable and deliberate way. However, the amendments do not expand the existing restrictions which apply to registered child sex offenders. The amendment serves to keep children safe from sexual predators, and the addition of the commonwealth offence to the registrable offences scheme is appropriate in the circumstances, particularly when considered with the additional safeguards that I mentioned earlier.
The bill amends the Crimes (Surveillance Devices) Act 2010 and the Listening Devices Act 1992 to support the use of body-worn cameras by police officers who are performing their duties in various situations, including public and private premises. These amendments provide a dual benefit of supporting our law enforcement officials with their capacity to collect evidence in criminal investigations and also strengthening community confidence in police integrity by supporting scrutiny of police activities.
These amendments explicitly authorise police use of body-worn cameras in a range of different contexts. The circumstances and conditions for the use of body-worn cameras include the requirement that police use their body-worn cameras in circumstances where they are dealing with the public, subject to specified exceptions. These exceptions are limited to circumstances where this is not reasonably practicable, could cause or increase a risk to a person’s safety, or would unreasonably limit a person’s privacy.
Further, police may only use a body-worn camera in the course of their duties, and their use must be overt, including through police advising people that the camera is recording.
There are limited exceptions to this requirement for overt use. These include when a firearm or conducted electrical weapon is drawn or used. The value of this footage is crucial to police accountability, such that it outweighs the increased privacy impact on people who may not be aware that they are being filmed using a body-worn camera, or if it would create or increase a risk to a person’s safety. This ensures that if a police officer has activated a body-worn camera, the officer is not required to announce or otherwise draw attention to the camera if it would be unsafe to do so.
The use of body-worn cameras to record these interactions, as well as the retention and use of footage by police, does place a limitation on privacy. However, the amendments comprise a range of measures to ensure that body-worn camera use achieves its legitimate operational and accountability purposes while limiting disproportionate or arbitrary impact on the right to privacy.
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