Unions jump on lack of email privacy

[Tom Worthington]

At 13:46 9/10/98 +1000, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:

>Nice to know the Unions are on top of this issue.
>ABC ... http://www.abc.net.au/news/98/10/09/981009_43.htm
>Unions urge regulation of e-mail taps ... Fri, 9 Oct 1998 ...

I was interviewed on this by Bob Hughes on ABC Radio 2BL in Sydney
<http://www.abc.net.au/2bl/> about e-mail and privacy  at 8:40 this morning.

We discussed:

* Employees rights: Employers shouldn't look at employees e-mail, without a
good reason, but there are few legal protections. There are commercial,
technical and legal needs for employers to have some supervision of e-mail
and web use.

* The ACS's Privacy Paper: http://www.acs.org.au/president/1998/past/privpos.htm
This was submitted to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References
Committee: http://www.acs.org.au/president/1998/past/privsub.htm

This discusses the need for Commonwealth privacy legislation, the OECD's
Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows and the
European Union Data Protection Directive which comes into force on 24
October 1998. In the absence of equivalent measures in Australia, european
firms will be prohibited from sharing data with Australian partners. Also I
talked about problems with the Federal government's proposed approach.

* The ACS's item on privacy to be in next Tuesday's Australian newspaper:
http://www.acs.org.au/news/oz.htm

* Victorian Government was proceeding with privacy legislation, having
released a Data Protection Bill Discussion Paper.

* Also I put in a plug for the 1998 Information Industry Outlook Conference,
7 November 1998, in Canberra, hosted by the Australian Computer Society -
Canberra Branch in Cooperation with the Department of Industry, Science and
Tourism. This will cover issues of protection of information on-line,
particularly for e-commerce: http://www.acs.org.au/president/1998/past/io98/

* There was also a quick mention of the ADFA conference and IRC this week
with Robert Steele, President, Open Source Solutions Inc.on on-line
survalence: http://www.acslink.net.au/~tomw/irc/irc21.html

ps: My paper "Defence and Government on the Web - Balancing public
information provision with security", 7 October 1998, is at:
http://www.acs.org.au/president/1998/past/websec.htm


Tom Worthington	           http://www.acslink.net.au/~tomw   PO Box 13
Immediate Past President                            Belconnen ACT 2617
Australian Computer Society                        tomw@acslink.net.au
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IO98, 7 Nov, Canberra: http://www.acs.org.au/president/1998/past/io98/