School of Business and Law

18 July 2023 - The Privacy and Responsible Information-Sharing framework in WA

Severe recent data breaches involving companies subject to Commonwealth data privacy protection (for example, Medibank, Optus, and Latitude) have revealed significant deficiencies in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) regulatory framework, not least the threshold at which individual Western Australians can expect their personal data to be protected in line with international best practice such as that offered in the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The proposed introduction of landmark WA legislation to reform personal privacy protections and create a Privacy Commissioner with enforceable powers is thus very encouraging. That stated, the evening's discussion will be guided by residual questions on the forthcoming WA legislation, such as:

1. How can the WA public be sure that information privacy is being taken sufficiently seriously?

2. How does the State legislation 'dovetail' with the Commonwealth scheme?

3. How do the privacy provisions compare to European data protection? (This is important if WA data is to be transferred to the EU)

4. What powers and duties will the State Privacy Commissioner have?

5. What suite of enforcement tools will be available?

Where:   Fraser Suites

Time: 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm

This forum featured the following presenters.

Ms Pip Brennan, Former Executive Director, Health Consumer's Council

00Pip Brennan has been a consumer advocate on many different committees over her 25 years. Most recently, she was Executive Director of the Health Consumers' Council in WA for seven years. During that time, she was a Panel Member of the Sustainable Health Review and also on the Supporting Communities Forum as a community advocate. In that role, she worked with the Department of Premier and Cabinet on the consultation regarding the Privacy Responsible Information Sharing project in preparation for drafting WA's first Privacy Act. Since resigning from her Executive Director role in March 2021 to pursue writing projects, Pip has remained on several state and national committees and joined some new ones. She is now the HCC Representative on the WA Pharmacy Board.

Mr Jonas Petersen, Chief Digital Officer, Office of Digital Government, Department of the Premier and Cabinet 

Jonas Petersen is the Chief Digital Officer within WA's Office of Digital Government, the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. Jonas has an extensive background in digital strategy, transformation, and innovation across government, healthcare, the private sector and start-ups. He started the role in January 2020 after arriving from Denmark – one of the world's leading countries in digital service delivery. Now based in Perth, he oversees the WA Government's Digital Strategy and administration of the AUD $900 million Digital Capability Fund. He works on privacy and responsible data sharing, efforts to address the digital divide and the State's participation in inter-jurisdictional collaboration.

Dr Phil Glover, Lecturer in Law, Edith Cowan University 

Phil served for 18 years in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (Now PSNI) between 1983 and 2001. Relocating to North-east Scotland in 2005, he attended the University of Aberdeen, attaining an LLB(Honours) in 2012. He was invited to study for a PhD and, in 2016, attained his doctorate. His PhD thesis was reworked into a book (Protecting National Security: A History of British Communications Investigation Regulation) published in 2022. Phil's research principally centres on the statutory implementation of the previously secret 1946 'Five Eyes' communications intelligence-sharing agreement in the laws of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, focusing on what are now the AUKUS nations.