Page 1440 - Week 05 - Thursday, 13 May 2021
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Importantly, the bill contains a number of safeguards to protect the use, collection, disclosure and storage of personal information. The ACT government has undertaken extensive consultation with the ACT Human Rights Commission and the Australian Information Commissioner in developing the framework for the use of the cameras.
The amendments in the bill provide for a robust and transparent framework for collecting, processing and using personal information related to the mobile device detection cameras, and clearly articulates the purposes for which this information may be used. The bill retains existing requirements in relation to use, retention and disclosure of personal information collected by traffic offence detection cameras.
The bill limits the collect of personal information to the minimum amount needed for the enforcement of the relevant road transport offences. The collection of information is consistent with the framework in other jurisdictions and information collected will be handled and stored in accordance with the territory privacy principles as provided in the Information Privacy Act 2014.
The bill requires that data collected by the cameras must be protected by security safeguards to prevent loss, unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure and any other type of misuse. Also, the image, any data or information related to the image or the making of the image, must be encrypted. One important and foundational privacy safeguard is the fact that the photos taken by the cameras will only be reviewed by a human compliance officer if the software detects the possible use of a hand-held mobile device. If the camera does not detect a possible offence, the image is deleted on the spot and never viewed by the human eye.
Further, information collected by the cameras may only be disclosed in limited circumstances. This includes law enforcement, improving community education and for specific road safety related research purposes. These safeguards will ensure that the information obtained through the use of the cameras is appropriately collected, used, stored and disclosed while not unreasonably limiting any individual’s right to privacy.
The bill also simplifies the framework for the operation of all road safety cameras, including mobile device detection cameras. This includes providing for the approval of these devices by disallowable instrument rather than by regulation, and by the relocation of the requirements in relation to images taken by a road safety camera from the Road Transport (Safety and Traffic Management) Act 1999 to the Road Transport (Safety and Traffic Management) Regulation 2017.
The relocation of these provisions to the regulation will allow the government to quickly respond as technology advances, emerging road safety issues are identified or where additional safeguards for the protection of personal information are needed in the future.
Similar to existing road safety cameras that are used to detect speeding and red-light offences, the framework requires that mobile device detection cameras must be tested before they are used on ACT roads. Each time a camera is installed, used after repair,
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