WA "laggardly" on privacy

by Tony Lejo

April 16, 2008

AN apparent delay in progress of two Bills that would strengthen WA’s data privacy laws has been described as “completely unreasonable” by the Australian Privacy Foundation.

Foundation director Roger Clarke says Australians are extremely concerned about their personal information being handled inappropriately.

“People may not have a general concept about issues such as privacy rights, animal rights or even human rights...,” Mr Clarke said, “but when you get very specific, such as asking people if they are concerned about the information about them that their doctor may hold, for example, they rate their concerns as very, very high.”

His point was made startlingly clear to Western Australians two weeks ago, when patients’ private details were found on computers dumped in a storage bin at Royal Perth Hospital.

Health minister-cum-Attorney General Jim McGinty introduced two Bills into WA parliament last year, which would both improve the security of private information and reform Freedom Of Information access.

However, the Bills have not progressed since December 2007.

Mr Clarke said WA was “laggardly” when it came to privacy protection. He described Mr McGinty’s Information Privacy Bill as being “extraordinarily weak”.

Mr McGinty’s was approached for comment, but did not respond.