[LINK] Clarke unleashes blast on privacy

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

<brd>
1. Congratulations Roger
2. What do you really think? Don't hold back, you can tell us, you're 
amongst friends....
</brd>

Clarke unleashes blast on privacy
The Australian
17 November 2009
Karen Deane

Australian Privacy Medal winner Roger Clarke has accused businesses and 
government agencies of "investing in image and "playing the public for 
fools" over privacy concerns in the surveillance age. 

In a broadside unleashed at the annual Privacy Awards dinner in Sydney, 
Dr Clarke said organisations had become "habituated to hands-off stances 
by parliaments and by regulators", and simply "got on and did" whatever 
they wanted. 

"Public thoroughfares are being converted from anonymous use to 
identified use, and not one privacy or human rights commissioner takes 
any interest," he said. "Police, working through CrimTrac, regard the 
building of a national vehicle surveillance database as unthreatening to 
democracy. And agencies demand access to body fluids and people's 
biometric measurements on the flimsiest of excuses, and in the absence 
of any effective regulatory framework."

Dr Clarke, who is chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation, a visiting 
professor in computing science at the University of N SW and the 
Australian National University, and a private consultant, received the 
prestigious award from Special Minister of State Joe Ludwig in 
recognition of more than 35 years work in the field.

Dr Clarke said public interest representatives were being kept at arm's 
length, and disenfranchised by terms such as "the same old faces".

"Organisations as diverse as the Human Services Department, the ABC, the 
National E-Health Transition Authority and the major banks act as though 
advocates have horns on their heads, and do everything they can to avoid 
engagement," he said. But the foundation "advocates all wear suits, they 
are conservative, and they don't have horns".

Debacles such as the Howard government's ultimately dumped Access Card 
program occurred "when public servants were allowed to get utterly out 
of touch with the real world".

"There will be more massive disappointments, not least in the e-health 
arena, because the lessons aren't being learnt"

-- 
 
Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au