Attorney General, George Brandis says he will move to make it a criminal offence to publish or disseminate “reidentified” government datasets, in a move that digital rights groups say could criminalise important research and security work. He added, “With advances of technology, methods that were sufficient to de-identify data in the past may become susceptible to reidentification in the future,” he said.
The chair of Digital Rights Watch, Tim Singleton urged Brandis to consult broadly with privacy groups to examine how the legislation would be introduced.
Brandis said the legislation would be introduced in parliament’s spring sitting to amend the privacy laws.