Page 4394 - Week 10 - Thursday, 22 September 2011
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Thirdly, the Road Transport Authority may use images where the use is required or authorised by law. Again, this type of secondary purpose has long been recognised as legitimate. A form of this secondary purpose is included in the information privacy principles and also in ACT Health’s information privacy principles. This amendment adopts the wording of the health information privacy principle because the wording is slightly more restrictive and sets out more clearly the sources of law unto which the requirement or authorisation may arise.
The supplementary explanatory statement provides detailed guidance on the interpretation of these provisions, including an explanation of when a use is required or authorised by law. In essence, it is not enough for the relevant law to be silent on the proposed use; the use must either be integral to the effective operation of the scheme that is established by the law or the use must be specifically required by it.
New section 29A deals with the disclosure of images and is in substantially similar terms to section 29. Section 29A(a) sets out the primary purpose for which images may be disclosed, which is the enforcement of the road transport legislation. Section 29A(b) is the general law enforcement purpose I referred to previously, which is the slightly restricted version taken from the information privacy principles. Section 29A(c) is the required or authorised-by-law purpose, and it also uses the slightly more restrictive wording of the health information privacy principles.
The supplementary explanatory statement provides some examples of disclosures that may be required or authorised by law. These include disclosures required by subpoena or search warrant. The requirement is clear in such cases, as a failure to comply with a search warrant or subpoena carries a risk of penalty.
The statement also provides guidance on when a disclosure is required or authorised by law and makes it clear that it is not enough for a law to create the discretion to disclose or to be silent on the issue of disclosure. New section 29B imposes obligations on persons to whom disclosures have been made to ensure that those persons do not retain images for longer than required or deal with them inappropriately. In practice, if images are routinely provided to start with a particular agency, it is likely that the Road Transport Authority would also enter into a memorandum of understanding with that agency to establish protocols for the deletion, use and non-disclosure of those images.
This is the practice that has been adopted in relation to access to ACT’s rego.act system. The standard memorandum of agreement for access to rego.act includes a requirement that each staff member who uses the system must sign a deed of confidentiality and that access must be tracked and blogged.
New section 29C requires the Road Transport Authority, and persons to whom images are disclosed to implement security measures to protect the images from misuse. The supplementary explanatory statement explains the ICT security arrangements that will be implemented to protected images from the point-to-point camera system. These measures operate in conjunction with the administrative and disciplinary measures that apply to territory officials to discourage inappropriate use and disclosure of
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