Two giant federal agencies – Centrelink and Medicare – are merging without proper examination of the privacy ramifications, which are immense. The Australian Privacy Foundation is calling for the government to abide by supposedly mandatory rules to cond…
Gradually, every Australian’s DNA is aggregating through heel pricks into a national database. But no cohesive laws or firm guidelines govern use of this or other personal DNA data, which is controlled by a “spaghetti junction” of rules. Academics Diana…
No-one in the Queensland Police made any mistake whatsover in connection with the death in a cell on Palm Island of Mulrunji Doomadgee, or in the years of investigations and coronial inquests and court cases which followed. Oh to be a Queensland police…
Silence that speaks volumes. The time is ripe for an open debate involving all parties interested in fair outcomes in our courts.
“You need not say anything but anything you say may be used in evidence”. It sounds like…
Restorative justice aims to help victims of crime, turn prisoners into contributors, make prisons better for everyone, and send convicted criminals back into the community to NOT re-offend. Why isn’t it in use everywhere? Brian Steels explains how it wo…
A US magistrate judge has ruled that every service detail recorded about you by Twitter (and, by inference, any other social media) is wide open to government – read police, security and marketing – access. The ‘Twitter Order’, if if survives appeal, co…
Opening an Australian Institute of Criminology conference, Justice Minister Brendan O’Connor gave a good rundown of some projects nationwide – including some by the private sector – to help juveniles avoid becoming hardened criminals.
A police officer slams his foot in your door, then barges past you into your house, aggressively demands you and your wife provide identity proof…all over a minor incident never likely to go anywhere near a court. Two years down the track, and…
Justice is blind…and sometimes makes a tragic mistake. For that reason, wrongful conviction findings in the UK have pointed to the clear need for a criminal case review mechanism where British justice rules. Brian Tennant backs calls for a review b…
If you can’t hear properly, communication is inevitably confused. New research indicates that very large numbers of Indigenous prisoners in Australia may not be able to properly hear what police officers and other authority figures say to them.