Page 4323 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 1993
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I note that this new system proposed by the Government, which is progressively being put in place - not all at once, of course, but over a period - will allow records and documentation within the system to be searched by a number of people, presumably simultaneously. As the transition between the present system and the new system takes place, and perhaps on a longer-term basis, it will be possible for records to be kept on different media, that is, on computer discs and on paper at the same time. The Government assures us that no legal rights are to change with the passage of this legislation.
There are some potential dangers with these arrangements, and I draw the Assembly's attention to them briefly. I suppose that it is at least theoretically possible for there to be some danger of losing information as information is transferred from written form to computer form. Just as we can now, with our modern technology, transmit information very quickly from place to place, from person to person, from machine to machine, it is also quite possible, as we all know, for information to be transmitted into oblivion with just as much ease. I note the comments made by the Minister in his presentation speech concerning devices to prevent that occurring, but when it comes to matters relating to computers I do not think anybody can be absolutely certain that they know what will happen when human beings and machines come into contact.
I also wonder whether there might be some threat to the accuracy of the present system with computer technology. At the present time, there is meticulous preparation of the documentation that is required to establish some change in the title, such as a notice of transfer, and that is meticulously transferred from the document which is lodged by a party onto the title deed, the certificate of title. That process of manual transfer allows for careful checking and does make for a fairly high degree of accuracy. Certainly, there is very little dissatisfaction in the present system with people not getting accurate documents.
It seems to me that automation, and the great speed with which documents and transactions will be able to be registered, does mean potentially that the new system could be slightly sloppier, less prone to the accuracy of the present system. It also important in this process to ensure that we educate the users of the new system. I do not mean by that merely the lawyers who will from time to time conduct searches but the many other people who on a day-to-day basis access that system, who are frequently not lawyers, who are paralegals or even so-called gofers in legal offices in this town whose job it is to conduct searches. To prevent inaccuracies, to prevent problems arising in the transition period, we will have to be very certain that people understand the full implications of this new system and how it works.
Finally, I draw attention to what would be a problem at all times for all computer systems - the intrusion of so-called hackers. I have read in the media accounts of people being able to penetrate the computer systems of organisations such as the FBI, the CIA and NASA. If those stories are true, it would also be possible theoretically for some talented, computer literate youngster, or perhaps not so young person, to penetrate the defences of our Land Titles Office. One could imagine the havoc that would be wreaked on our present land titles system if someone was able to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property into their name by manipulating the system. Maybe that is guaranteed conclusively not to happen by the procedures the Government has put in place, but somehow I doubt that that is ever entirely possible.
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