Page 3963 - Week 09 - Thursday, 25 August 2011
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There is a long history of human rights advocates, privacy advocates and the general community calling for a careful and considered approach to increased surveillance, increased police powers, and increased data collection by authorities. This should be respected.
Members would have seen reference to some of these issues in AECOM’s paper. It points out:
AFP believes the storage of images for a defined period would prove beneficial from a crime prevention and detection perspective … This application potentially represents ‘function creep’ and will raise community concerns about the purpose of the system and the privacy of their data.
The Greens believe that this is true. Therefore, this issue does need to be raised with the ACT community.
I point out further comments made by AECOM towards the end of its report. It said that when point-to-point systems were used for “speed enforcement purposes only”, and I emphasise those words, they do not in themselves present any privacy or human rights issues beyond those posed by current speed enforcement systems. It is the storage and extended uses that present the problems. The AECOM report went on to specifically recommend that images of non-offending vehicles are deleted from roadside equipment as soon as practicably possible. As I have said, this is not the approach that the bill takes in its current form.
The concern is reiterated by the Queensland Travelsafe Committee. It listed a wide variety of privacy concerns relating to the retention of data from automatic numberplate recognition systems. These include the recording and retention of data relating to people who have not been identified as having done something illegal; the use of the system for previously unintended purposes, referred to as function creep; and philosophical issues about the collection and use of information and how that relates to the sort of society we are content to live in. These concerns stem specifically from the storage of images of all vehicles for future examination. This is the aspect the Greens are recommending should be separated out of this legislation. A number of privacy bodies, both statutory and community, have raised concerns with this approach.
I want to acknowledge the position of the Canberra Liberals on this bill, as expressed by Mr Coe. The Greens are pleased to see that the Liberals have taken what appears to be a strong approach on human rights, on privacy, and on careful consideration of police power. I believe that there are a number of human rights issues on which we should work together.
I wish to point out that the Greens have been in contact with the ACT human rights commissioner concerning this legislation. Despite the fact that the bill raises significant concerns around privacy and human rights, I was informed that the commissioner has not seen the bill or had a chance to comment. We believe that the commissioner should specifically consider the element of special concern in this bill. That is the retention of potentially private data for future general usage by the police.
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