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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (21 February) . . Page.. 91 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

One drawback, of course, is the possible loss of privacy of the consumer; that is a drawback that does immediately spring to mind. There is some concern in the community that there is some ACT Government involvement in the trial that is to be held; and I would very much appreciate the Government advising the Assembly of what, if any, involvement it has in the trial.

The issue that the Bill addresses is the possible loss of privacy, and we must bear in mind that encoded in each smart card will be a record of the purchases made with that card; thus the card provider will have access to information about where a person shops and detail on their spending habits. What is there to stop smart card providers giving out this information to third parties, for instance, direct mail companies? It may be something even worse than that. For instance, if you are purchasing health care, the detail of the health care provided may well be provided, say, to an employer. It is essential that there be some privacy protection; and, under the current law, there is no such protection. The Fair Trading (Amendment) Bill, which is an amendment to the Fair Trading Act, would make it an offence for the cash card provider, without an individual's consent, to release to a third party information on how that individual uses their smart card. The Bill does seek to impose severe penalties for any breach; in fact, fines of $20,000 for an individual, and $100,000 for a company in breach of these privacy provisions.

The New South Wales Privacy Committee, the Federal Bureau of Consumer Affairs and the Privacy Commissioner issued reports in 1995 which warned of the privacy implications of smart cards. I believe that citizens have a right to expect privacy when paying with smart cards. You must acknowledge that there is not even a code of practice in place for these cards as yet. I think that citizens have a right to expect that banks will not release to third parties information on their spending patterns. I ask: Are we going to wait until problems arise before we enact privacy legislation because smart card information has been released without consent? I believe that we should act now, before the information from smart cards is misused.

To conclude, I would say to the Assembly that this Bill is only an interim solution. Clearly, a uniform national law regarding the use of smart card information is needed and would be totally supported by the Labor Opposition in this Assembly. In the meantime, we have the trial about to go on. I believe that it is incumbent upon the Assembly to protect the consumers and the privacy of our citizens now. Everybody in this Assembly would acknowledge that there is a grave risk if smart cards are allowed to become the currency in our community, without all of the implications having been thoroughly examined and without the necessary consumer protection being put in place. This Bill does attempt to at least protect the privacy of citizens in the ACT. It is an interim measure; I do expect that there will be national law enacted, a national code of practice put in place; but it has not been yet. I commend the Bill to the Assembly.

Debate (on motion by Mr Humphries) adjourned.

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