> While doing a quick bit pf browsing over some law documents on the
>web ( at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/pa1988108/ )
>I found this site which is basically just a searchable database of legal
>stuff. This bit is on the Privacy Act of 1988.
This is the Australasian Legal Information Institute and it is run
out of the Faculty of Law at UTS (I do a liitle bit of stuff for them).
It is pretty easy to use and you should encourage everyone to use it
> Now, let me first say that I have only just touched the surface
>with this bit of research and probably need to do a lot more reading...
>but...
> It would seem that if itd/acs collect any private information
>about you, which is defined in the act, there are specific things they
>must do first, or very soon afterwards. Now I'm not sure if they do.
> Someone with more legal knowhow should look into this, since
>legalese is convoluted at the best of times, and I'd have to sit down and
>read over the act several times to even begin to understand it. Perhaps he
>who wrote the copyright stuff in TFM would care to give his humble
>opinion? I thought he did a great job on that, so perhaps he could lend
>his expertise to progsoc once more?
(thanks) That was me.
The short answer is that the Commonwealth Privacy Act does not apply
because UTS was set up under a NSW act. However...
NSW does have a Privacy committee with looks at this stuff, and
one of tehi things they look at is the Information Privacy Priciples
(which are also in the Commonwealth Act). Principle 10 of those
says that if a "record-keeper" has information for a purpose,
they should not use it for another purpose.
My thoughts are that it is a breach of Privacy (although not legally
enforcable- yet). Two possible solutions:
1) say to people: let us look at your account, or you will not be
allowed to exceed the limit.
2) Make it a condition of getting the account that you consent to
having your account looked at (this one is pretty bad and in
reality, no better than we have now)
In case your are interested, the Law Reform Commission did look at
it in 1983 and is going to look at these issues again.
Cheers
Chris