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Privacy Gone Mad? -
ARLC Review Pending
Solomon
Miller, Senior Associate
The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) has recently
released
Issues Paper 31, Review of
Privacy, setting out the scope of the latest
inquiry to be undertaken by the ARLC in relation to a review
of the laws relating to privacy in Australia.
Although the Terms of Reference set by the
Attorney-General for the ALRC envisage
there being a wide ranging review of the existing privacy framework, in
formulating the issues paper the ARLC has emphasised that the review will
consider the following issues.
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The compliance cost and regulatory
burden imposed on business. Nationally
consistent privacy laws - whether achieved by way of
national legislation or complementary regimes - would go
a long way to reducing compliance costs, whilst also
alleviating concerns and uncertainty about which Federal,
State and/or Territory regime applies.
-
Whether a separate set of privacy
principles for private sector organisations and
Australian Government Agencies can be justified,
particularly in light of the inconsistencies between the
two sets of principles and the desire to have nationally
consistent laws.
-
The need to maintain the current
compliance exemptions, as well as the desirability of
introducing new exemptions, such as exemptions for
valuers and archivists. If the ARLC adopts the commonly
held view that privacy protection should
apply as widely as possible throughout the community, it
may well recommend that some of the existing exemptions
be removed, rather than recommending that the existing
exemptions be expanded.
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Whether the privacy
laws are impairing the quality, effectiveness and
timeliness of management of health information (as
contended by the National Health and Medical Research
Council). In particular, consideration will be given to
whether the current laws adequately deal with the
transfer and sharing of health information, having
regard to the desirability of introducing national
electronic health record systems.
-
The privacy of
young people and children, with a view to ascertaining
whether the privacy laws are contributing to problems
regarding the sharing of information in circumstances
where the safety of a child or young person is at
issue. Further, consideration is to be given to the
balance struck between respecting the privacy of
children and making disclosures to parents. To that
end, it has recently been mooted that medical
practitioners should be able to deny parents access to
information about their child where that access would
damage the “therapeutic relationship” upon which
the traditional “doctor-patient” relationship with the
child is based.
We will keep
you updated on any further developments.
A discussion paper
is due in May 2007. If you would like to make a submission
regarding the impact of privacy laws on your organisation
click here to
complete the form.
For further information please contact
Solomon on +61 3 9609 1650 or email
smiller@rk.com.au.
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