Category: Privacy
Crisis causes power to aggregate centrally
Crisis is no reason to abuse secret powers
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
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.
At last, Australia’s privacy watchdog takes positive action
Ausralia’s statutory privacy watchdog, the OAIC, is taking Facebook to the Federal Court over alleged breaches of the privacy of 311,000 Australians…who may be just the tip of the iceberg. The case alleges Facebook has broken Australian law by harvesting personal data without fully revealing what the company was doing, and not protecting personal data properly.
Power elite to ‘capture’ Darwin, exert colonial-like control
Some academics are warning that surveillance systems mushrooming in Australia’s major cities are more than just police aids to fight crime: they are actually community management mechanisms designed to re-exert a form of colonial era control. Here’s what they say about new systems in Darwin and the NT.