Australian Privacy Law & Practice – Key Recommendations for Health Information Privacy Reform
Speech by Professor Rosalind Croucher* at the Managing Patient Confidentiality & Information Governance Forum, 22 August 2011, Melbourne.1. IntroductionTo help focus my presentation today I thought it would be useful to reflect on an ‘information timeline’ to provide a backdrop for a consideration of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s work on privacy.Information timeline1982 Freedom of …
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Read moreGovernment gives giant ‘tick’ to ALRC privacy recommendations
The Australian Law Reform Commission has welcomed today’s announcement by the federal Government that it will implement a large portion of the recommendations of the ALRC’s review of Australian privacy laws.The first stage of the Australian Government’s formal response to For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice (ALRC 108) considers 197 of the 295 …
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Read moreMedia Briefing – Simplifying and harmonising privacy law and practice
11 August 2008, Privacy Inquiry A consolidated set of privacy principles The Privacy Act provides different sets of Privacy Principles for the handling of personal information by government agencies and by private sector organisations. Contractors to the Australian Government, government business enterprises, and those involved in public-private partnerships may be bound to comply with both …
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Read moreAustralia must rewrite privacy laws for the Information Age
The Australian Law Reform Commission’s landmark report For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice (ALRC 108), was launched today in Sydney by the Cabinet Secretary, the Hon Senator John Faulkner, and the Attorney-General, the Hon Robert McClelland MP.The three-volume, 2700 page report is the culmination of a massive research and consultation exercise conducted over …
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Read moreMedia Briefing – Protecting Health Information in the Digital Age
11 August 2008 Electronic health records In recent years, there have been increasing pressures, particularly from government, to move from paper to electronic health records. The ALRC’s Privacy Inquiry coincided with a number of major initiatives to develop electronic medical records—including the proposed national Shared Electronic Health Records system, in which a summary of personal …
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Read moreMedia Briefing – New cross-border privacy laws—greater certainty for all Australians
11 August 2008The ALRC’s national consultation exercise clearly indicates that Australians are concerned about their personal information being sent or held overseas without their knowledge and consent. ALRC President, Professor David Weisbrot, said “This unease appears to reflect a general feeling by people that they are losing control over something deeply personal, with little ability …
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Read moreMedia Briefing – Children, young people and privacy
11 August 2008Do the technologically savvy, confident and optimistic members of Generation Y have radically different attitudes to privacy from their Baby Boomer parents and their grandparents? ALRC President, Professor David Weisbrot, stated that, “During our Inquiry, we used a number of strategies to obtain the views of children and young people—for example, we conducted …
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Read moreMedia Briefing – Technology-neutral privacy principles should govern rapidly developing ICT
The impact on privacy of rapidly developing information and communications technology is a central consideration for the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) in its report For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice, released publicly today. The ALRC addresses privacy concerns by recommending the implementation of technology-neutral privacy principles, which should be supported by a …
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Read moreMedia Briefing – Reform of the credit reporting system
The Privacy Act regulates the system of credit reporting, allowing information about an individual’s credit-worthiness to be collected and disclosed to credit providers, such as banks, finance companies, mortgage companies, and mobile phone service providers. In Australia, this information is collected by a small number of specialist credit reporting companies from credit providers and from …
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Read moreScrutinising Privacy – ALRC Discussion Paper
Justice Berna Collier, Part-time Commissisoner, Australian Law Reform Commission, QLS Government Lawyers Conference, Brisbane, Thursday 17 April 2008. On 30 January 2006 the then federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, referred a review of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) to the Australian Law Reform Commission for inquiry and report. The task of the ALRC was to consider the extent to …
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