Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

TELECOMMUNICATIONS AMENDMENT (INTEGRATED PUBLIC NUMBER DATABASE) BILL 2009

The bill proposes amendments to the Telecommunications Act 1997 (the Act) to allow information contained in the Integrated Public Number Database (IPND) to be disclosed to authorised persons to facilitate state and territory government initiated telephony-based emergency warning systems.

States and Territories have primary responsibility for emergency response measures.

They currently use a range of mechanisms to warn the public of impending emergencies - most commonly doorknocking, sirens, TV and radio broadcast alerts.

The capacity to provide telephony-based alerts would be a valuable addition to the States’ and Territories’ arsenal of warning mechanisms.

Telephony-based emergency warning systems would allow the States and Territories to deliver mass outbound emergency warnings (for example via Recorded Voice Announcements or SMS) quickly and accurately to the public in targeted geographical areas. Telephony-based emergency warnings would complement existing warning mechanisms with a view to improving a community’s ability to prepare for, and respond to, an emergency.

The IPND is a centralised database of all telephone numbers in Australia (including unlisted numbers) and associated customer information, such as name and address information. The IPND was established for the efficient operation and functioning of telecommunications networks. The IPND is currently managed by Telstra Corporation Limited (Telstra). Telstra is currently required to provide and maintain the IPND as a condition of its carrier licence.

Given the personal nature of the information contained in the IPND (such as telephone numbers, names, addresses), access to the information in the IPND is strictly limited under the Act.

The Act does not currently permit wide-scale disclosure of information in the IPND to State and Territory emergency authorities for telephony-based emergency warnings.

The historical advice to the Commonwealth has been that any plan to allow the States and Territories access to the integrated public number database (IPND) as part of any warning system would be best secured by a legislative amendment. Legislation is required to impose appropriate ongoing controls against potential misuse of sensitive personal information taken from the IPND.

There are clear advantages in using data sourced from the IPND for telephony-based emergency warnings over the alternative consumer ‘opt-in’ arrangement. Opt-in arrangements rely on individual consumers to sign-up, maintaining data accuracy and currency. The IPND is a requirement for telephone usage and as a result it is the most comprehensive and accurate Australian public number database available and information is updated on a continual basis.

At the July 2008 COAG meeting the Commonwealth secured the agreement of the States and Territories that this matter was a priority and required policy agreement between the States and Territories by December 2008. This outcome was achieved.

In accordance with the agreement, this legislation has been drafted by the Commonwealth to authorise access to the IPND to the States and Territories for the purpose of developing and implementing warning systems.

This bill when passed will allow information contained in the IPND (including unlisted telephone numbers) to be disclosed to persons authorised by the Attorney-General. This is likely to primarily be State and Territory Government officials, however there is the flexibility for the Attorney to authorise other persons.

The bill provides the Attorney-General with powers to make legislative instruments.

The Attorney-General, in consultation with the Minister administering the Act, will specify who can use IPND information in the event of an emergency or disaster. It is anticipated that this will be at a senior level within agencies responsible for emergency management.

The circumstances in which IPND information could be used for a telephony-based warning will also be determined by the Attorney-General. It is intended that the meaning of ‘emergency’ will be that which applies under relevant State and Territory laws respectively.

Individual States and Territories will also retain autonomy to decide when and how best to warn their citizens of emergencies and disasters. The States and Territories will be responsible for developing the telephony-based emergency warning message delivery systems and the content of any messages.

The bill includes a number of safeguards.

To address potential privacy concerns, when IPND information is used to issue an emergency warning, subscriber names will not be disclosed.

Secondary disclosure provisions contained in the Act will also apply. In recognition of the sensitive personal information contained in the IPND and that both listed and unlisted numbers will be released, there are penalties of up to two years imprisonment for misuse of the IPND data.

The bill also requires any agency that activates a telephony-based emergency warning using IPND information to report each incident to the Attorney-General and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Agencies responsible for issuing alerts will also be required to report annually to the ACMA and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

Location Dependent Carriage Services

The bill also contains amendments that will clarify provisions in the Act which relate to the disclosure and use of IPND data for delivering Location Dependent Carriage Services (LDCSs). LDCSs are services which automatically route calls to the appropriate store or branch location of a business, depending on the location of the caller.

Examples of businesses commonly using this type of service include pizza delivery and taxi services. Currently the Act does not contain express authority for disclosure and use of information in the IPND for the purpose of providing LDCSs on a wide scale.

The amendments explicitly allow LDCS providers to access listed public number information in the IPND for the purpose of supplying large-scale LDCSs. The amendments are aimed at addressing the current legislative uncertainty concerning the ability of carriage service providers to use IPND data for LDCSs. The bill also addresses key privacy concerns around the release of IPND data. Disclosure of IPND information relating to unlisted numbers is not permitted under the new amendments. An additional secondary disclosure and use offence have been included in the amendments to further protect against improper disclosure and use of information from the IPND for the purpose of providing LDCSs.

I commend the bill to the Senate.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I indicate at the outset that the opposition does support the Telecommunications Amendment (Integrated Public Number Database) Bill 2009. This bill was appropriately introduced by the government in February in the wake of the devastating bushfires in Victoria and is, I assume, the first response from the government in relation to this matter and does reflect the concern about the absence of a national emergency warning system. From our perspective, this is a very important move and we want to cooperate fully with the government in ensuring passage of this legislation, and I record here my thanks to Senator Conroy for his cooperation in ensuring that the opposition has been appropriately briefed by his department on this bill.

I do, of course, take the opportunity in the context of this bill and the purpose it seeks to serve to again record our sympathies for those who lost loved ones during the Victorian bushfires. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the families of those victims. This is about trying to ensure that in future we do what we can to reduce the loss of life from natural disasters of this kind. That is the sentiment behind this bill and that is the sentiment that we obviously strongly support. As I mentioned, there is widespread community concern about the need for a national early warning system for natural disasters of this kind. It is a matter that has been the subject of some discussion for some time.

This bill is the first step in ensuring that state and territory emergency service providers have access to the information to develop a telephony based early warning system in order to send out a mass warning using telephones. We have to acknowledge that a lot of work still needs to be done before a foolproof national system can be developed, but this is an important first step. The bill itself amends the Telecommunications Act 1997 to broaden access to the Integrated Public Number Database in emergency situations. There is probably not widespread knowledge of the existence of the Integrated Public Number Database but it is a very important asset whose management is critical and access to which must be governed very carefully and closely, given the data it holds. This is an important step in ensuring access to the database in emergency circumstances. The bill allows access by what is described as an emergency management person—that is a very bureaucratic term, but I guess we all understand what that means—as authorised by the Attorney-General, who will have administration of this at the Commonwealth level, because the Attorney-General is responsible for emergencies, to allow access to information contained in the IPND, the Integrated Public Number Database. Of course, we hope that doing so will assist in emergency situations with the communication of warnings—about the location of bushfires, in the case of the recent disaster—via both fixed line and mobile phone services.

As I mentioned, the IPND is the master telephone database for every telephone device that is both fixed or mobile in Australia, both listed and unlisted and irrespective of carrier. It is a very important national aspect. It was established during the time of our government in 1998 in order that we can have a centralised, comprehensive database for use by the telecommunications industry and a limited number of other organisations with community protection functions. It is updated on a regular and often daily basis and it is managed by Telstra—and I commend that company on its management of this database—as the designated IPND manager. The effect of this bill will broaden access to the IPND beyond the current scope for state and territory initiated telephony based emergency warning systems so that they can make mass outbound calls.

Emergency management is a responsibility of state and territory governments. We note that under this bill the Attorney-General will rely on the definition of ‘emergency’ that is provided for in state and territory legislation to give effect to the powers provided for in this legislation. There has of course been, as I mentioned, previous discussion about the deployment of a national warning system. Our government put the issue on the COAG agenda in 2007, but to this point there has not been agreement at COAG level on the best way forward for the deployment of a national system and on exactly how it will be paid for. Various state based trials have tested opt-in solutions, but national agreement has only to this point been achieved in principle. Appropriate avenues should be pursued to ensure there are no barriers to the establishment of an early warning system, be it at state or national level, that will assist authorities in reducing risk to the population in an emergency situation. There are a number of steps that need to be undertaken to develop a national warning system, and we would of course encourage COAG to continue to consider what is required to deploy a fully effective and comprehensive national system as soon as possible.

Further, we continue to support efforts to improve the technology available so that such a warning system can be fully effective and as far as possible minimise confusion of those receiving messages who may not be in a designated emergency area at the time of the communication. The government has properly acknowledged that at this stage the technology is still restricted to using the IPND to communicate with fixed lines and mobiles based on their billing address and not on the actual roaming location, which I think we all acknowledge is a limitation on the system, but that is all that we have to work with at the moment and we must proceed on that basis. Obviously it would be desirable to be able to warn and communicate with people who do not have a billing address in an area that is threatened. That is obviously desirable but not yet possible.

We are particularly concerned about ensuring all efforts are made to continue to protect the integrity of the database. That is critical and that is why access to it has been appropriately restricted to this point. We seek that particularly through the existing safeguards in the Telecommunications Act and their application to these amendments. The bill includes measures to protect the personal information contained in the database, including that subscriber names are not disclosed by the authorised user or by secondary disclosure, with appropriate penalties applying. We support these measures to secure personal information contained in the database, particularly as it pertains to some 50 million phone numbers and the personal and business details corresponding to those numbers. As I said, it is an extraordinary and valuable database. Criminal penalties of up to two years imprisonment will apply for misuse of the data on the IPND, consistent with the existing provisions of the Telecommunications Act for misuse of the database. The bill makes it an offence for IPND information to be disclosed if not for the provision of telephone based warning emergency systems. Proposed section 295X includes that reasonable steps be taken to ensure that the use of the IPND information does not adversely affect the normal operations of a telecommunications network, that any agency using the IPND for an emergency warning must provide a report of each activation of a telephony based emergency warning to the Attorney-General and the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and, further, that agencies responsible for issuing warnings will have to report annually to ACMA and the Privacy Commissioner. We strongly support those safeguards and the accountability mechanisms contained therein.

Further, the bill includes amendments to clarify the use of the IPND information for location dependent carriage services—something that, again, the community generally is probably not all that familiar with. This amendment stems from a discussion paper that was issued in 2007 under our government, and we support this amendment. Overall, we support this bill and the interim arrangements that have been put in place—and already acted upon—until the bill finally receives royal assent. As the government has noted, and which I think is important to emphasise, any use of the IPND for warnings cannot replace other measures already used by state and territory authorities to provide communities with warning about dangerous conditions, particularly given that, as I have previously indicated, telephony based warnings are not perfect due to the reliance on billing addresses to identify those to be warned. This is not a silver bullet, and I do not think the government pretends that it is, but it is an important first stage of our response as a parliament to the devastation in Victoria and it is one that we fully support.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens broadly support the Telecommunications Amendment (Integrated Public Number Database) Bill 2009. As the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate has indicated, this is the very first step on the long road to a nationally integrated early-warning system. I would also like to add my thanks to Senator Conroy and his hardworking staff for keeping us informed as to the process and the reasoning behind the bill.

I am very pleased to be here this afternoon speaking in support of the bill. The first step that we are undertaking is to provide state and territory emergency service personnel, with due precautions, access to the IPND, the Integrated Public Number Database. This database contains all of the phone numbers in the country and is held by Telstra. As has been acknowledged by everybody, this is very much a first, small step. There is a great deal of detail to be worked out to actually deliver what this bill promises to do. For example, the new secure database that state and territory emergency services will access has not been created. It is not clear where it will sit, whether it will be one centralised database or a number of databases, or, therefore, who will manage it. The government will provide $11.3 million for the purpose of creating it and for ancillary purposes. Our understanding is that the tender will go out ‘shortly’. The states will develop the emergency warning systems and the protocols et cetera ‘as soon as possible’, but obviously that could still be some time. It is my understanding that COAG have been in discussions about this since the fires that ravaged Canberra and have only just been able to come to an agreement on how the states will access this database.

We are certainly supportive of measures that could have any impact at all the next time Australian communities are faced with the kinds of horrors that they faced in Victoria or, before that, in Canberra. But this is to not minimise the difficulties that are faced. After all, each state and territory defines ‘emergency’ differently. The scope for what can be warned against is fairly broad: it is not only floods, cyclones and fires; chemical leaks, criminal events and even terrorist activities could also potentially be covered. There are different rules and procedures in each state relating to the definition of ‘emergency’. Other issues that will need to be addressed carefully include the need for consistent processes about who makes the decision and when to send out a warning, and expectations need to be managed about the level of detail and recommendations provided through these warnings. It is very tricky, particularly in an SMS, to convey meaning clearly to people so as to not cause panic and trauma. Technically it is very important that an early-warning mechanism like this should not interfere with, overload or disable people’s ability to access outgoing services, such as 000 services. There is a very real potential that dumping such a high volume of calls into a particular area of the network may congest that network at a time when it will already be under considerable strain.

The bill authorises the Attorney-General to specify by legislative instrument which state and territory emergency management personnel can have access to the IPND for warnings of a specified emergency event. I foreshadow now that the Greens support the technical amendments that have been circulated this morning, which require the Attorney-General to give written notice to Telstra, which holds the IPND, as to who is authorised to access it. We believe that this not only provides greater legal certainty and protection to Telstra but also is an additional transparency mechanism. Those amendments are supported.

Each time the database is disclosed, reports are required to be sent as soon as is practicable to the minister—in this case, the Attorney-General—and to ACMA describing the emergency or likely emergency and its location, the number of telephone numbers that were disclosed, the date, the number of persons to whom the information was disclosed and the purpose of each disclosure. In addition, annual reports are required to be made to ACMA and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

That brings me to the key point on which the Greens are seeking some clarification from the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy: whether these reports should be made public. The minister has advised that, consistent with the Telecommunications Act, there is nothing in the bill to prevent these reports from being made public. You would expect this to be so, but it is not explicit. That is the only key issue we are seeking clarification of this afternoon. I do not believe that there is any reason to not make this information public, and that reporting would be an additional transparency and privacy protection. The parliament and the public have the right to know when these phone numbers have been accessed, even for very worthy reasons such as this. Of course, an emergency is a very public event, and a message going out to thousands of people is also a very public event. If ACMA is to be provided with annual reports as to who accessed the database and why, these reports could easily be made public. We are just seeking clarification from the minister as to his expectation of how that is to be handled. As I said in my opening remarks, the Greens are very happy to be here this afternoon supporting the bill.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank all those who have contributed to the debate. The government is committed to doing whatever it can to respond to emergencies and natural disasters. The recent tragedy in my home state of Victoria, the floods in Queensland and even the close call we seem to have had with Cyclone Hamish off Australia’s north-east coast remind us that there is always more that we can do. It is in this context that the Telecommunications Amendment (Integrated Public Number Database) Bill 2009 has come forward today. I thank the senators who have spoken on the bill and I am encouraged by the support for the bill going forward.

The overall management of emergencies and disasters is a matter for the Attorney-General; however, my portfolio has worked with the Attorney-General’s Department to facilitate access to a database of all Australian telephone numbers and associated address information for emergency warning purposes. The database is the Integrated Public Number Database, or IPND, and it represents one of the most comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date listings of people in Australia. However, we need to use this database with care because it obviously contains large amounts of sensitive, personal information. For example, it contains information on all unlisted telephone numbers in Australia. There are people who, for professional and personal reasons, need to retain anonymity. I do not need to go into details about how important it is that this data be protected.

The bill will allow information contained in the IPND to be disclosed for emergency warning purposes. However, this bill does not provide a silver bullet. A range of mechanisms will continue to be needed to alert and inform people caught up in emergency situations. There are a range of measures that already exist through the actions of the front-line state and territory government emergency agencies and in coordination with the Commonwealth government’s Emergency Management Agency. These agencies currently use a range of mechanisms—most commonly door-knocking, sirens, and TV and radio broadcast alerts—to warn the public of impending emergencies. The capacity to provide telephony based alerts would be a valuable addition to the state and territory arsenal of warning mechanisms and would help affected communities prepare for and respond to an emergency.

To address potential privacy concerns, the bill includes a number of safeguards. For example, subscriber names will not be disclosed for emergency warning purposes. In addition, there are penalties of up to two years imprisonment for misuse of the data sourced from the Integrated Public Number Database. There are also requirements for incident-by-incident reports to be sent to the Attorney-General and the Australian Communications and Media Authority following an emergency warning. Agencies responsible for issuing alerts will also be required to report annually to ACMA and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. It is my understanding that there is nothing in this bill precluding ACMA from publicly reporting on the use of data from the Integrated Public Number Database for emergency-warning purposes. In fact, ACMA has advised that it will include this information in its annual report—subject to its statutory reporting requirements and relevant privacy obligations. The government amendment that I introduced into the Senate will increase certainty and confidence when IPND information is disclosed by requiring specified emergency management persons to give a written notice to the IPND manager, stating that they will only use or disclose the information for emergency-warning purposes.

The past weeks have been an extraordinary time in the history of Australia and, particularly, Victoria. Bushfires have wrought unprecedented damage in Victoria while, at the same time, northern areas of the country have been visited by flood and cyclone. Our thoughts remain with those who have lost possessions and, tragically, loved ones. Those figuring at the front line—fire services, police and others—should once again be commended. Their work has been outstanding. However, it is also important to impress the need for continued vigilance from all in the community.

The passage of this bill will allow the portfolio of the Attorney-General, in consultation with state and territory governments, to proceed to develop the mechanism to deliver a telephone based emergency warning system. In a joint press release issued by me and the Attorney on 23 February 2009, the government announced that it would allocate $11.3 million for this purpose. The bill will also clarify that limited information from the Integrated Public Number Database can be disclosed for the provision of location dependent carriage services. Location dependent carriage services are for the delivery of services such as pizza delivery. These amendments provide greater certainty for existing service. It was very pleasing that our colleagues in the other place gave such strong bipartisan support to this bill. In addition to that unanimous support, there was also recognition that passage of this bill is a priority. I commend this bill, as amended by the government, to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.