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Legislating against police use of the Check in Tas app could make the community more inclined to use it, according to a Tasmanian tech expert. Nelson MLC Meg Webb’s public privacy concerns were brought up in Tasmania’s upper house last week after asking whether private personal data obtained by the app could be accessed in police investigations. READ MORE: Labor set to reveal Federal candidate Braddon Responses came after interstate examples saw requests for access to registration data arrive in Victoria and Western Australia, where the latter has seen legislation introduced to fill a loophole allowing police to access data during investigations without the need for a judicial warrant. University of Tasmania researcher and digital security expert Joel Scanlan said that without guarantees that the data in the app would not be accessible to the Tasmanian Police, public confidence in the process could be affected. “For this type of tracking and tracing to be effective, people need to know the reasons why their information can be accessed,†he said. READ MORE: No-quarantine travel bubble will reopen with New Zealand from today “It has to be built on trust or else they won’t sign, compromising the effectiveness of contact tracing . ” Cabinet Minister Guy Barnett argued that neither the Tasmanian Police nor any other agency had made a request for access to the data. “It’s important to know that everything is based on contact tracing, so it’s designed to keep people safe, and if people understand the purposes of it, that’s the key point,†he said. . But Ms Webb said the Tasmanian government had an opportunity to be proactive in closing any loopholes in the state to ensure public trust, especially since it made registration mandatory. “The problem is, if we wait until there is a problem, it means we wait for people’s privacy to be violated,†she said. Mr Barnett said Tasmanian Police had not said they had not expressed their intention to use the data and that the government would monitor the situation. He said if the police expressed their intention to access the data, the government should “discuss it with them at that time.”
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Legislating against police use of the Check in Tas app could make the community more inclined to use it, according to a Tasmanian tech expert.
Nelson MLC Meg Webb’s public privacy concerns were brought up in Tasmania’s upper house last week after asking whether private personal data obtained by the app could be accessed in police investigations.
The responses came after interstate examples saw requests for access to registration data come to Victoria and Western Australia, where the latter saw legislation introduced to fill a loophole allowing police access to records. data during investigations without the need for a court-ordered warrant.
University of Tasmania researcher and digital security expert Joel Scanlan said that without guarantees that the data in the app would not be accessible to the Tasmanian Police, public confidence in the process could be affected.
“For this type of tracking and tracing to be effective, people need to know the reasons why their information can be accessed,” he said.
“It has to be based on trust or else they are not going to sign, which compromises the effectiveness of the contact tracing.”
Cabinet Minister Guy Barnett argued that neither the Tasmanian Police nor any other agency had made a request for access to the data.
“It’s important to know that everything is based on contact tracing, so it’s designed to keep people safe, and if people understand the purposes of it, that’s the key point,†he said. .
The data that the application collects. Image: Register in the Tas application
But Ms Webb said the Tasmanian government had an opportunity to be proactive in closing any loopholes in the state to ensure public trust, especially since it made registration mandatory.
“The problem is, if we wait until there is a problem, it means we wait for people’s privacy to be violated,†she said.
Mr Barnett said Tasmania Police had not said they had not expressed their intention to use the data and that the government would monitor the situation. He said if the police expressed their intention to access the data, the government should “discuss it with them at that time.”
