Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Information Disclosure, National Interest and Other Measures) Bill 2022. Access to a person's mobile phone location data, known as triangulation, can mean the difference between life and death. Last year, according to the Australian Federal Police National Missing Persons Coordination Centre, more than 53,000 people were reported missing—about 145 a day. In many of these cases law enforcement and emergency services agencies turn to the telecommunications carriers for vital mobile phone location data. With more than 20 million Australians estimated to own a mobile phone, location data can and does save lives.

While the telcos cannot provide precise GPS data or exact coordinates, they are able to provide approximate location information, based on triangulation of a mobile phone relative to mobile transmission towers. The quality of this information is now considerably better than it was thanks to the introduction of advanced mobile location under the previous coalition government, as I will return to. The data cannot be used to verify exactly where a person was at a particular time, but it can establish—sometimes to quite a degree of precision—the location where a person may have gone missing. This is critical information for police or emergency services personnel when searching for a person who has been reported missing or who is at risk of harm.

Part 13 of the Telecommunications Act sets out strict rules for telecommunications carriers, carriage service providers and others in their use and disclosure of personal information. Currently under section 287 of the act, telecommunications companies can only help to triangulate a missing person if a threat to a person's life or health is 'serious and imminent'. The bill would remove the word 'imminent' making it easier for law enforcement agencies and emergency services organisations to access triangulation information. While removing the word 'imminent', the bill adds an important safeguard which is that the entity or person being asked to disclose the information needs to be satisfied that 'it is unreasonable or impracticable to obtain the other person's consent to the proposed disclosure or use.'

A recommendation was made in 2008 to the then Labor government by the Australian Law Reform Commission—in a report entitled Foryour information: Australian privacy law and practice (ALRC Report 108) and tabled in August 2008—that the requirement that a threat be imminent was inappropriate. At that time, the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended 'imminent' be repealed, expressing the view that any analysis of whether a threat is serious must involve consideration of the gravity of the potential outcome as well as the relative likelihood. While most recommendations from this report were adopted, the then Labor government decided not to implement that recommendation. The intention of the bill before the House now, as the Minister for Communications stated in her second reading speech, is that it is targeted not only to improve the operation and transparency of the relationship between law enforcement and the telcos but also, crucially, to save lives. In view of the importance of saving lives, it is regrettable that the then Labor government did not take action at the time.

It is regrettable that this recommendation lay dormant until the urgent need for law reform was raised by the New South Wales deputy state coroner in a letter to the Minister for Communications in October 2022. This followed a coronial inquest into the sad disappearance of a New South Wales resident, which found that law enforcement agencies could not characterise the threat to life and health as 'imminent', meaning no location data could be accessed, which it is feared contributed to the loss of a life. In the minister's second reading speech she referenced a 2020 New South Wales coronial inquest into the death of a man which raised similar concerns. However, my colleague the shadow minister for communications, Senator Henderson, sought information in a briefing from the department of communications as to whether there had been any correspondence sent by the coroner at the time to the Commonwealth government requesting such an amendment to the act, and she was advised that there was no such correspondence sent.

It is important to point out that, as reported by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, some 25,410 disclosures of personal information were made by the telcos in the last financial year for the purpose of averting a threat to a person's life or health. This bill contains other measures to support public safety by permitting the use and disclosure of unlisted numbers stored within the Integrated Public Number Database, or IPND, which a database of all Australian phone numbers and associated names and addresses. Currently, the IPND manager is prevented under the act from providing a triple 0 emergency service with a name and address of a caller from an unlisted number. Given that 95 per cent of the 72 million mobile phone numbers in Australia are unlisted, and that mobile phone numbers are unlisted by default, this does present a significant barrier to providing life-saving help when a caller is unable to provide details of their location. Allowing triple 0 services to access unlisted phone number information will save lives. The bill also clarifies a number of other matters, including that telecommunications companies, when providing reasonable and necessary assistance to emergency services organisations, are not liable for damages when acting in good faith.

The bill builds on important work by the former coalition government, which rolled out advanced mobile location—or AML—technology, which is built into the operating systems of both Apple and Android telephones. This provides greater location accuracy to triple 0 services during an emergency call from a mobile telephone. Following extensive work by the previous government over many months, AML became available to Australians calling triple 0 from a mobile phone in December 2020. By August 2021, the rollout was complete across all states and territories. AML has already been used to save lives. For example, in South Australia the technology helped emergency services locate two kayakers caught in strong winds three kilometres offshore, which eliminated the need for an expensive air and sea search. Triple 0 receives up to 27,000 calls nationally each day, and around 78 per cent of these calls originate from a mobile phone, so accurate location data is critical.

I want to thank all of those in my former office, in the department, in the working group that was established to bring together representatives of emergency services and in the various departments and agencies with policy responsibility for communications for all the work that was done to implement advanced mobile location. This work has been enormously important and has undoubtedly saved lives.

While the opposition supports the objectives of this bill for the reasons I have given, we do recognise that there are some privacy concerns that have been raised in relation to the provisions of the bill. More broadly, we recognise the critical need to protect the privacy and personal data of all Australians. It is very important therefore to make sure that this bill does not give rise to any unintended consequences. A question which arises, for example, is whether the bill provides adequate safeguards for a person fleeing family violence under circumstances where the perpetrator might make a false missing person report with the aim of securing information about the whereabouts of the victim-survivor. The opposition is concerned that the government has not consulted sufficiently on this point in relation to this bill, including with family violence organisations.

Our concerns were increased by what we learnt through questioning on this matter in Senate estimates on 23 November. It is for this reason that the opposition supported a motion to refer this bill to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by March 2023—that is to say, it is important that this matter be carefully considered to ascertain whether there are appropriate safeguards within the bill against breaches of privacy and personal data that could, particularly in the case of victims-survivors of domestic violence, put people in danger. That is a question which does need to be properly examined and answered.

I conclude, firstly, by referring to the strong record of this side of the House when it comes to increasing the safety of Australians by making better data available in relation to the location of those who are at risk, and, secondly, by indicating the opposition's awareness of and, in the broad, support for the objectives of this bill. I note only our concern about privacy issues and wanting to be satisfied that these issues are properly worked through, including through the Senate committee process.

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