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Friday, June 24, 2016

Australian Privacy Foundation rates the parties: privacy protection doesn't rate

The Australian Privacy Foundation Election Challenge-party responses to
Ten Vital Privacy Issues cross-checked against their public platforms- presents a dismal outlook for the priority and approach they give to privacy protection.
(They didn't bother asking about position regarding the 2009 Australian Law Reform Commission recommendation that political parties exemption from the Privacy Act should be removed- the response too predictable I imagine.)

(Some omissions in original now corrected)

In descending order of inadequacy, the best:
Others

The Sex Party has a limited platform, but it has been consistently pro-privacy, it claims to have "a broad civil libertarian policy suite", and it has some specific policies that are significantly supportive of human rights. This includes a statutory right to privacy and stronger protections agains breaches of privacy, particularly in relation to data retention and CCTV. (20/100)
The Labor Party platform contains only 3 mentions of 'human rights', two relating to immigration and and one to a promised LGBTI Discrimination Commissioner. Of the 100 policy areas, 4 do relate to 'Workers Rights' (sic), and a dozen more to 'Tackling inequality and disadvantage'. However, the 'National Information Policy' and the policy on Comprehensive Credit Reporting include elements that are actively anti-privacy in nature. The Party had claims in relation to several initiatives some years ago, but its current stance is grossly deficient. Labor provided a Response, which in a number of respects was positive. But it did not score very highly at all in relation to the challenges that we posed. A vote for Labor is a vote for privacy-abusive laws. (19/100)
The Xenophon Group has a narrow platform, and its response was limited. The platform provides very little meaningful about human rights or privacy, but a couple of minor statements have been provided about betting agency access to personal data, and warrants for metadata collection (5/100).
The Liberal Party platform contains nothing whatsoever relating to human rights or consumer rights. The Party has been actively hostile to privacy in recent years, and its commitment to 'Combatting Terrorism' appears to be as unbalanced as ever. In addition, the Party failed to provide a response. From 11/100 in 2013, the Party's score has actually gone backwards. A vote for the Liberals is a vote for privacy-abusive laws, and against privacy protections (2/100).
The National Party appears to sub-contract its platform to the Liberal Party, and hence earns the same abysmal rating (2/100)."
Then:
1 Party may be privacy-supportive, but it's difficult to tell:
  • The Liberal Democrats (David Leyonhjelm) are strongly 'libertarian', in the US sense, ("favouring individual choice and freedom over government intrusion"), although they're less extreme than the word would imply in US politics. The Party has firm policies on freedom and civil liberties and democracy, but they're not detailed enough to apply a score.
2 further Parties responded to the APF's Challenge, but without sufficient substance to earn a score:
  • Consumer Rights and No-Tolls is generally supportive of human and consumer rights, but does not have any specific policies in place in relation to privacy.
  • Glenn Lazarus Team provided no meaningful response in relation to human rights or privacy.
The remaining 13 Parties offered virtually nothing of relevance to the analysis:

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous10:44 am

    Of worth noting are the two parties who received a positive score, being (unsurprisingly) the Greens and the Pirate Party.

    ReplyDelete