Privacy Archives - Civil Liberties Australia

Coronavirus Pandemic: Statements by CLA

17 August 2020 17 August 2020

For all the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, then in the longer-term recovery to normal phase, civil liberties and human rights must be integrated into every decision of all authorities. While a health and emergency policing response is vital, so too is ensuring that the maximum freedoms of Australians are respected at all times. Premiers and others are in danger of forgetting peoples’ rights matter too!

WA gives away its citizens’ facial images

27 July 2020 27 July 2020

States around Australia – Tasmania, Victoria, WA – are handing over the images of their citizens collected for a driver’s licence to be used as a national crime database. Some people and groups, including CLA, are very worried how politicians can be so cavalier about people’s personal privacy.

1245 Tasmanians complain about photo ID

23 May 2020 23 May 2020

The Tasmanian government is downplaying how many people are upset by their transferring of all personal driver licence photos from Tasmanians to a national database without data protections laws in place. The government wrongly stated only 20 people had complained: the true number is 60 times that number, more than 1200.

Trust is the issue when politicians want people to act

10 May 2020 10 May 2020

As the federal government seeks to influence people to download the C19 virus tracing app, it starts a long way behind square in being trusted. The problems are that Minister Stuart Robert announced the app using untrue statements, and the government has an awful record of being incompetent in safeguarding people’s data and privacy.

How does the government define privacy?

1 May 2020 1 May 2020

Privacy probably means something entirely different to you than it does to the Australian government, its police and security services. That’s why close examination of the upcoming legislation around the Covid-19 tracing app is so vital. Kelsie Nabben and Chris Berg comment.

Is the government’s coronavirus app a risk to privacy?

22 April 2020 22 April 2020

Will you download a government app to allow them to trace you – and everyone you meet for more than a few minutes – over the next few months, or years? Law and criminology professor Rick Sarre weighs the pros, cons and the government’s track record before making his choice.

Apps may come to dictate our future ‘freedom’

17 April 2020 17 April 2020

The more fear and worry, the more governments impose technology “for your own good”. With a virus pandemic, big-tech companies are offering surveillance solutions that are hard to resist in the short-term…but that may be ’trojan horses’ for a widespread big brother, non-parliamentary dominance once the Covid-19 panic has passed.

Crisis causes power to aggregate centrally

28 March 2020 29 March 2020

As the virus crisis bites deeper into daily life, more people are starting to question what freedoms and liberties we are giving up at the behest of an ever-shrinking ‘executive’ ruling group, comprising a hotch-potch of people from MPs to mining bosses and public servants with interesting track records. CLA member Carolyn van Langenberg airs some opinions alternate to the mainstream groupthink.

Crisis is no reason to abuse secret powers

19 March 2020 19 March 2020

While civil society is grating the government licence to use extraordinary powers during a medical emergency, that is no excuse to abuse people’s trust by bringing in draconian measures like over-the-top surveillance and elimination of the flimsy privacy rights we still retain, CLA says.

Borders disappear…along with your right to privacy

16 March 2020 16 March 2020

A new rights-eroding law would increase the reach of police and spooks into our lives at the expense of our withering rights, says author Paul Gregoire writing for Sydney Criminal Lawyers. The Frankenstein legislation would enable five-ways open slather access to all phone calls, emails, data and even metadata.