The Western Australian government has pushed its public sector privacy and information sharing bill through parliament with few amendments at its last opportunity before the state election, despite ongoing concerns from a local privacy expert.
The WA government on Thursday cut short the debate on the Privacy and Responsible Information Sharing bill to ensure the long-awaited protections – initially consulted on in 2019 – would pass following months of negotiations.
Nationals Legislative Council member Colin de Grussa, however, told InnovationAus.com the government was “arrogant” in shutting down the debate on the complicated bill, given that it has a majority in the upper and lower houses of parliament.
A bill to establish a mandatory data breach reporting scheme and to legislate the Office of the Information Commissioner was also passed after debate was cut short.
The PRIS bill had been debated on several occasions since it was introduced into the upper house in mid-June, but consideration by the committee in whole – in which the bill is debated clause by clause – was cut short.
With its passage, South Australia now becomes the only state without dedicated privacy legislation.
Mr de Grussa said Opposition and crossbench members had proposed amendments “developed with support from experts in privacy laws”, but the government had declined to act.
This included a “dangerous provision” on automated decision making that would not prevent the government from using a “partially or fully automated system [that] is harmful, biased, or discriminatory”, as characterised by University of Western Australia expert Julia Powles.
The state’s Minister for Innovation and the Digital Economy Stephen Dawson has previously noted that the legislation does not authorise the use of automated decision-making, which is captured by other laws such as the Work Health and Safety Act.
Instead, the intention is to “provide principles for information privacy principle entities to follow should they use personal information in automated decision-making”.
Independent member Wilson Tucker flagged that the time given to debate the bill was worryingly truncated given it “is an extremely complex piece of legislation”.
Mr Tucker accused the government of prioritising “politically advantageous” legislation rather than properly debating legislation that “will provide rights and better data privacy laws for the people of Western Australia”.
“There’s been an opportunity cost that the people of Western Australia have worn by this bill not being prioritised,” Mr Tucker said.
The government rejected a series of amendments proposed by Mr Tucker that would’ve brought the bill in alignment with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, defending its adequacy.
During debate, Mr Dawson said the state would in the future support Mr Wilson’s proposal to incorporate a right for citizens to have their data deleted, but only after the federal Privacy Act adopted it, favouring “a consistent national approach”.
Mr Tucker however did acknowledge that “there have been some discussions behind the scenes” and that “there was a level of good will” in considering amendments.
In particular, the government effectively accepted an amendment proposed by independent member Wilson Tucker, by issuing its own changes that prevents data shared within the public sector from being used for “any purpose”.
Similarly, the government effectively accepted an amendment made by Liberals member Tjorn Sibma, by tabling its own amendment that brings forward a statutory review of the legislation from five to three years.
In a statement, Mr Dawson said the new laws “are an important legislative step to ensure Western Australians’ personal information is protected”.
“As the primary custodians of key data sets which has been provided by the community, it’s our responsibility to ensure they are used to make better decisions, deliver seamless public services and drive innovation for public benefit,” Mr Dawson said.
He said the passage of the bill “is a major win” in building the state’s “digital future in a safe and responsible manner with a framework of accountability”.
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