Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to incorporate my second reading speech.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

The Australian Crime Commission Amendment (National Policing Information) Bill 2015 and Australian Crime Commission (National Policing Information Charges) Bill 2015 seek to amend the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002 to merge CrimTrac into the functions of the Australian Crime Commission.

This is the second Bill from the Government that seeks to merge an entity into the Australian Crime Commission. This first was to merge the Australian Institute of Criminology with the ACC.

The Bill before us now is the result of the 2014 Commission of Audit recommendation that CrimTrac be merged with the ACC `to better harness their collective resources' and 'better support law enforcement operations by the Australian Federal Police and other Commonwealth and State agencies.'

It is interesting to note that other reviews that have considered the question of a CrimTrac/ACC merger did not recommend it.

At the meeting of the Law, Crime and Community Safety Council in November, State and Territory Police Minister and Attorneys-General gave in-principle support to the merger.

CrimTrac was established in 2000 under an Intergovernmental Agreement between the Commonwealth and state and territory governments. CrimTrac's role and function is to bring law enforcement information from around the country and make it accessible to all Australian police and other law enforcement agencies. CrimTrac's services include:

An important piece of work that CrimTrac are currently working on is the National Domestic Violence Order Information Sharing System.

There is no national system that shares information about protection orders between courts and police and CrimTrac was tasked with designing, developing and testing a prototype information sharing system for domestic violence orders.

CrimTrac is self-funding and receives its income from criminal history checks. This income accrues in the National Policing Information System National Account and I understand that that account has over $100 million in it earmarked for future technology upgrades.

Instead of merging it out of existence the Government could have explored a legislative basis for its role that would formalise its oversight and information sharing provisions.

This Bill has significant implications for the privacy of Australians.

The Office of the Information Commissioner in their submission to the Legal & Constitutional Legislation Committee stated:

It is not apparent to me why it is necessary to remove the information currently held by CrimTrac from the protections, oversight and enforcement arrangements in the Privacy Act...

Given the volume and sensitivity of the information currently held by CrimTrac, I am of the view that there would need to be cogent reasons for exempting that information, and the activities associated with it, from the Privacy Act entirely. I consider that the objectives of the regime could be met, while at the same time retaining the protections and oversight offered by the Privacy Act. (OAIC submission p 4)

It exempts massive amounts of sensitive information from the Privacy Act; including missing person data, criminal records, DNA profiles of victims and offenders, and the fingerprint and palm images collected by police for a variety of reasons.

Reassurances that there will still be oversight from the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement and Integrity do not go nearly far enough.

As the Acting Australian Information Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim has pointed out that the proposed privacy safeguards are not enforceable and could be changed without going through Parliament.

Mr Pilgrim also notes that the Crime Commission would not be forced to grant access to, or correct, an individual's personal information and data.

He notes the provisions through existing state and territory police forces, but rightly points out that jurisdictions have inconsistent privacy legislation.

We also share Acting Commissioner Pilgrim's concerns about the possibility of data being disclosed in missing person cases where someone has exercised their right to "go missing" for legitimate, including personal safety reasons.

It is reasonable for adults to exercise their free choice to not associate with family and friends, particularly where an individual may have been subject to a violent or harmful environment. The OAIC submitted:

If the Bill is enacted, the Privacy (Persons Reported as Missing) Rule 2014 would no longer apply to the personal information currently held by CrimTrac (ie national policing information), and the ACC would not be obliged by the Rule to respect any known wishes of persons reported as missing when using or disclosing information about them.

The Greens are concerned about the overall mission creep of the Australian Crime Commission.

Just like the recent Bill relating to the Australian Institute of Criminology and the Australian Crime Commission, this is much more like a takeover than a merger.

The Australian Greens do not support this Bill.