Asia-Pacific privacy Commissioners - Black holes amp; Colle.ppt

Asia-Pacific privacy Commissioners - Black holes Collective inaction Graham Greenleaf Professor of Law, University of New South Wales 11 September 2003 See .au/~graham/ for updates / details Parallel Session 6:  A Safe and Open Society: the role of privacy regulators Overview 1 Two black holes: Reporting and remedies What evidence is there that Commissioners do their job? Arguably most important function: resolving complaints Is there accountability for public monies spent? ‘Black holes’: complaints go in, but what comes out? Outcomes of complaints - who gets a remedy? Reporting complaints - do we know what law they apply? 2 Regional standards and collective action What Asia-Pacific regional standards are developing? Are regional Commissioner providing sufficient input? Collective input from regional experts: the APPCC Black hole #1: Outcomes - Does anyone get a remedy? Sources of evidence available? √ Annual Reports - only public source examined 01/02; some 00/01 ? websites? - could extract from reported cases (have not) - should provide continuous data ? FOI requests? - ‘document’ available? (have not done) Only some jurisdictions considered Privacy Comms - Australia; HK; NZ; Canada Information Commissioners not considered - mainly access, some correction, some broader Outcomes - Australian PC 2001-02 Annual Report - no statistics! Complaints tripled with private sector coverage (611) AR contains summaries of 11 complaints, of which one resulted in $5000 compensation No statistics given of complaint outcomes at all 2000-01 AR included some outcome stats 133 closed complaints; uncertain % breaches found 9 cases in AR involved $52,000 compensation No information about other remedies No genuine s52 determinations in 15 years No appeal right; No substantive case on the Act ever before a Court for judicial review Outcomes - NSW PC latest Annual Report 1999-2000 before new Act commenced (1/7/00) No statistics or complaint resolutions yet available under new