CLA Director Richard Griggs writes: It’s a very big step for our State Government to be proposing new laws to enable groups to be banned from wearing identifying badges. It’s a big step because up until now what we choose to wear has been exactly that – our choice. For our parliament to now be considering given itself the power to regulate in this area of personal choice is quite a remarkable departure from our traditional legal system
Police in Florida USA have crept in to a funeral home to enlist the help of a corpse they created to unlock the man’s mobile phone. Avoiding the man’s fiancee, who was at the funeral home at the time, they have tried to use the dead man’s fingers to gain access to information. So far, the phone has stayed mute. Meanwhile investigations continue over how fellow police came to shoot the man dead in the first place, over the ‘crime’ of having illegal tinted windows on his car.
DNA testing has reached a level of popularity that ensures that many of us have parts of our genome available online, even if we’ve never spit into a test tube ourselves. And the decisions on who gets access to that data may be in the hands of family members we’ve never spoken to – or didn’t even know existed.
You take a ‘happy snap’ of your neighbour, or her child, over the fence without their knowing? Is this OK in Australia? Do we need a new law around privacy? 14 April 2015
There’s a danger we could sleepwalk our way into losing our liberties, Michael Cornish says, as he examines some disturbing trends in how people are being treated. 10 April 2015
Historically, we curbed the excesses of kings, but we’re now allowing bureaucratised, global and irresponsible government concoctions to ride roughshod over our privacy and rights re money and tax. 11 March 2015
Most new laws wash by people, unconcerned. But proposed data retention laws will gobble up your private life and expose it to the government. Be warned, Eva Cripps says. 7 March 2015
Proposed mass data retention is so over-the-top repressive, here and in the UK, that some citizens have a positive duty to protect their sources, writes Crikey’s Bernard Keane. 21 Jan 2015
Can you safeguard your privacy? No, says Stillgherrian, pointing out that a simple taxi ride might reveal all to anyone with prying eyes and evil intentions. 25 Nov 2014
New and enlightened ‘sexting’ laws will prevent young people from getting criminal – and sex offender registry – records just for innocent selfie photographs. Other states should follow suit. 16 Oct 2014
Diverse interests, from Muslim groups to CLA, have combined to ask the government to delay its latest tranche of terror laws to allow more consideration and consultation. 16 Oct 2014