PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr GREGG (Deakin) (17:37): I move: That this House: (1) recognises the Attorney-General's announcement on privacy law reform aimed at strengthening Australia's privacy framework and ensuring it remains fit for purpose in an increasingly digital economy; (2) notes that the reforms are intended to: (a) provide Australians with greater control over their personal information; (b) enhance transparency and accountability in the collection, use, disclosure and retention of personal information; (c) strengthen protections against interferences with privacy and misuse of personal data; and (d) improve confidence in the digital economy by ensuring privacy settings and protections keep pace with technological change; and (3) further notes that the Government: (a) has undertaken an extensive consultation process on privacy reform, including through the Privacy Act Review; and (b) is continuing to consult with business, industry groups, consumer representatives, privacy experts, civil society organisations and members of the public to ensure privacy laws can effectively address privacy risks associated with emerging technologies.
Every day, information is collected about us: what we buy, what we look at online, where we go, what interests us and who we interact with. Some of it is particularly personal: our identity, our health, our face and even our precise location over time. One piece of information might not tell you much.
Put enough pieces together, and you can build a pretty detailed picture of someone: their habits, their interests, their movements, their preferences and their circumstances. Increasingly, technology can work things out about us that we actually didn't tell it. We don't necessarily hand over the picture; we hand over the pieces.
Technology can put together that picture, and that picture can be valuable. It can help businesses understand us, reach us and target us with advertising. Sometimes that is useful.
But our personal information can also be sold, traded for money. Information about us can become a product. That is why having some control matters and why businesses, particularly large businesses holding huge amounts of information about Australians, need to be disciplined about how and what they collect and what they do with it.
Do you need it? Do you need all of it? What are you using it for?
Would the reasonable person expect that? Did they actually have a real choice? Those are some pretty basic questions, and they sit at the heart of these reforms.
The main change is the new fair and reasonable test. If an organisation collects, uses or shares your personal information, what it does must be fair and reasonable. It has to consider things like whether an ordinary person would expect it, whether it could do the same job with less personal information and whether the person had real, genuine choice.
In simple terms, just because you can collect information doesn't mean you should. The reforms also make consent mean more. We all know the routine: pages of terms and conditions, a tick box at the bottom, and you just click 'I agree'.
Sometimes the box is even already ticked. Sometimes a whole lot of different permissions are all bundled together, and you're supposed to be consenting to a whole lot of things at once. That can look like consent without giving people much of a real choice.
Under these reforms, consent has to be voluntary, informed, current, specific and clear. Pre-ticked boxes and bundled consent may not meet that standard. If you need my consent, get my real consent.
That matters particularly when money is involved. The proposal says that an organisation generally cannot trade your personal information without your consent. Put plainly, if you're going to sell my personal information, I should know about it, and I should have a real say.
The reforms also include a right to erasure. That is important. Large digital platforms can build up a lot of information about a person over time.
Australians should have a way to say, 'I don't want you holding this information about me anymore,' particularly if they're leaving a platform. The proposal would give people the right to ask large digital platforms, including social media and search platforms, to erase their personal information. Australians strongly support that idea.
Ninety-three per cent support a legal right to request deletion of their personal information. There are sensible limits, of course. This isn't a way to erase legitimate journalism or news reporting, and there is an exception where raising the information is technically impossible or infeasible.
But the principle is right: if a large platform holds information about me, I should have a meaningful right to ask for it to be erased. The reforms also deal with new technology—AI, facial recognition, smart glasses and connected vehicles. The technology changes; the basic rules shouldn't.
Then, when things go wrong, organisations need to act quickly. Eligible data breaches would have to be reported to the Information Commissioner within 72 hours so that people can take steps to protect themselves from scams and identity theft. ID lock will also give Australians a practical way to protect their identity.
Through MyGov, people will be able to block, unblock and monitor the use of their eligible identity documents through the document verification service. These reforms are out for consultation at the moment, and we need to make sure they'll work in practice. The opinion of businesses and Australians is really going to matter and inform this, and we also need to get the balance right.
What we're trying to achieve is not complicated. Living a modern life means that information about us will be collected. It shouldn't mean losing all say over what happens to it, though.
If you collect our information, treat it properly. If you want to sell it, get our real consent. If you hold it, keep it safe.
Where Australians have the right to ask for it to be erased, respect that choice. Our personal information is valuable. Some of it is precious.
Those we trust with it should treat it that way. I commend the Attorney-General and her wonderful office for the incredible work they've done on this proposal, and I encourage all Australians interested in this policy to have their say as part of the process. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Aldred ): Is the motion seconded?
Ms Clutterham: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.