Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Telecommunications Amendment (Integrated Public Number Database) Bill 2006. This bill makes a number of changes to the way in which the information contained in the integrated public number database is managed. The integrated public number database is the central registry of all Australian telephone numbers and associated information, such things, for example, as a subscriber’s name and address in Australia.

The maintenance of the IPND is of central importance to the efficiency and operation of Australia’s telecommunications network. The IPND plays an important role in connecting Australians to emergency services. It is also a very valuable tool for law enforcement agencies. Under the current arrangements, the IPND is operated and maintained by Telstra. At present, access to the information in the IPND is permitted in limited circumstances but, given the nature of the information, the permitted uses of this information are heavily restricted, as could be expected. As the IPND is primarily used to enable the operation of multiple telecommunications networks in Australia, it differs from commonly known, publicly available telephone directories in a number of respects. Unlike publicly available telephone directories, like the White Pages, the IPND also contains records of all silent numbers as well as the full names of telephone subscribers.

Given the sensitivity of the information contained in the IPND and the potential privacy implications of this data being misused, it is essential that the integrity of the database is protected. Unfortunately in recent times there has been growing evidence that the IPND data has been misused. A specific area of concern in this regard has been the misuse of IPND information by parties claiming to use the data for the creation of public number directories, when in fact unscrupulous operators have been using this information to offer reverse-search-capable directories to facilitate telemarketing and credit management operations. I am sure there are many reputable and credible operators who use the information properly, as it is designed, but of course there are always a few who do the wrong thing.

Other examples of these misuses include the use of the IPND for data-matching, identity confirmation, credit checking and debt collection purposes. Given the extreme sensitivity of the information contained in the IPND, the use of the data for these purposes is clearly unacceptable. Labor is committed to protecting the personal privacy of all Australians. Labor has raised the privacy implications of improper access to the information in the IPND with the Australian Communications and Media Authority at Senate estimates on a number of occasions. During these hearings Labor has criticised ACMA for not taking enforcement action to prevent and punish the misuse of IPND data. Despite the issue being raised in Senate estimates and despite recognition of this issue by the predecessor to ACMA, the Australian Communications Authority, in its 2004 paper Who’s got your number?, before now little has been done to put an end to these unacceptable practices. In this context Labor welcomes the improvements, provided for in this bill, to the way in which access is provided to data contained in the IPND.

The bill improves the integrity of the data in the IPND and it does it in a number of ways. Firstly, the bill clarifies the circumstances in which access to the data and the IPND can be granted. The bill does this by allowing the minister to specify by legislative instrument categories of permitted uses for IPND data and the conditions that will govern the use of the IPND data for each of those categories. The bill further closes off the most commonly exploited loophole in the existing regime. That is the acquisition of IPND data for the purposes of maintaining a public number directory and then using the data for other purposes. The bill addresses this issue by defining the term ‘public number directory’ and specifying the information that can be contained in data entries in order for a compilation to qualify as a public number directory. In this way parties would be permitted to develop public number directories that listed an individual’s name, public telephone number and, optionally, their address. However, they would be prohibited from including any other information—for example, silent telephone numbers.

The bill also permits the minister to prescribe additional conditions that a compilation must comply with to be considered to be a public number directory. As a further privacy protection, the bill also removes the responsibility for determining whether to grant access to the IPND data from Telstra and instead requires ACMA to approve applications for access to the IPND data. The bill requires ACMA to establish a framework to judge applications for authorisation to access the IPND data. This framework is to be developed in consultation with the Privacy Commissioner and the Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department, giving Australians additional assurance of the protection of their personal information. On top of this the bill also permits the minister to impose conditions of authorisation that govern the use of IPND data for authorised parties. The House has been told that the minister intends to specify a condition preventing the transfer of IPND data overseas and a further condition requiring the destruction or secure disposal of IPND data upon the termination of the authorisation. Again, the Privacy Commissioner and the Attorney-General will be consulted on these ministerial conditions.

Finally, the bill creates a series of new criminal offences and penalties for unauthorised use of IPND data, failure to comply with conditions governing the use of IPND data and other misuses of this data. These additional protections will of course apply in addition to the continued operation of existing privacy protections such as the Privacy Act and the Do Not Call List.

Taken as a whole, this bill represents a significant improvement in the regulatory framework, protecting the information contained in the IPND, that is welcomed by the Labor Party. In addition to the strengthened privacy protections, the new regime for access to IPND data created by this bill has the benefit of creating the potential for the use of IPND data for research purposes. The IPND is potentially very useful for parties carrying out research into issues like health and education. As long as legitimate privacy concerns associated with the use of IPND data are dealt with, opening access to the IPND for researchers is likely to result in significant public benefits. However, at present, IPND data can only be used by telecommunications carriers for limited purposes and by law enforcement agencies, emergency services and companies producing public number directories.

The bill would create a fifth category that would permit certain types of researchers to obtain access to the IPND. The kind of research that the bill would permit would be limited to non-commercial research for a purpose that is in the public interest. In addition, researchers would not be permitted to obtain access to the private number information contained in the IPND. Given the strengthened privacy protections included in this bill, Labor is confident that the permitted uses of IPND data can be extended to researchers without threatening the integrity of the IPND.

In sum, this bill represents a long overdue strengthening of the regulatory framework surrounding the integrated public number database. For some time there has been a need to improve the rigour and effectiveness of the privacy protections that apply to the data contained in the IPND. Labor has been calling for a more concerted regulatory effort in this area for a number of years and this bill is a good down payment for this goal. While the bill needs to be buttressed by active regulatory action by ACMA, it is a good start. That has been acknowledged in comments made by others in the past and by me today. For these reasons, Labor supports the Telecommunications Amendment (Integrated Public Number Database) Bill 2006.

I will just make a few other comments. Obviously, the protection of this sort of data is very important to all Australians. I think it is important that this parliament has the right regulatory framework in place. It has been a long time coming, but it is something that we need to do. I am pretty confident that what is contained in this bill will deal with all the issues that I have talked about to do with privacy and protection. But certainly we need to be very careful that, while we aim to protect people’s privacy, at the same time we do not prevent legitimate business from using it—the legitimate use of very important information. That information, of course, is mostly public, through either the White Pages, the Yellow Pages or other directories. As for access to the information, while it is protected, it certainly can be used for business and legitimate purposes. I think we all need to be aware of that.

I think this bill does address those issues, but we need to be very careful and mindful of the way that this bill interacts with them. There may be some cause in the future to look more closely at a number of businesses and companies out there which are doing legitimate work and which may have concerns. There may also have been oversights by the minister’s department or the government in putting this bill together originally or things which were not visible at the time in terms of what individual companies and businesses might be doing.

I know from the shadow minister’s office that this is something that we will certainly be looking at closely. We will be monitoring it and making sure that we can continue to support small business that would need to use this type of information in a legitimate way. I am acutely aware of the pitfalls in the use of this data. Some unscrupulous businesses might go out there and deliberately rort this type of information. It is certainly something that we want to prevent and that the Labor Party would not support. That is why we support this bill in the first place. We think it will address all of those concerns. I thank the Main Committee.

See this speech in context