Australian Law Reform Commission review of Federal privacy law

Key Points:

The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) is due to hand down its Discussion Paper in relation to its review of federal privacy laws on 1 September 2007. The issues the ALRC was asked to consider included:

• rapid advances in technology that affect how information is gathered, stored and communicated;
• possible changes in community views about privacy and how it should be protected by law; and
• laws introduced by State and Territory Governments that affect privacy.

There is a complex range of legislation in Australia which purports to protect personal information. This includes Federal, State and Territory privacy and health records legislation which restricts the collection, use, disclosure and management of personal information and health records held by the public sector and some types of private sector organisations.

The Discussion Paper is likely to provide analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of having separate privacy regimes for private sector organisations and public sector agencies at the Federal level and the interrelationship with the myriad of privacy legislation at State and Territory level.

It is also likely to examine the types of activities, such as direct marketing, which are currently exempt from the Federal privacy legislation.

Issues relating to consent of youth and children and members of the community with an impaired ability to provide informed consent due to illness or disability are also likely to be canvassed.

Our next issue

The next issue of Information Insights will examine the comments and preliminary recommendations made in the ALRC Discussion Paper and its implications for the public sector.