New Zealand Considers Cracking Down on Police Snooping

Haralambos Geortgilakis writes "In what might be a New Years spasm of sanity, the police & local Echelon goons are in the "official," public spotlight. That "swooshing" sound, is the aforesaid goons diving for the power switch.... Here's the New Zealand Herald story."

NZ Privacy Commission

[fltm]

The Full Report [knowledge-basket.co.nz] is online at the NZ Privacy Commissioner's Page

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report sets out the results of the Privacy Commissioner's examination of proposed amendments to the Crimes Act 1961. Supplementary Order Paper 85 makes two principal amendments to the Crimes Act which the Commissioner supports:

* broadening "crimes against personal privacy" by including the interception of non-oral private communications within the prohibition against intercepting private communications;
* creating a new offence of accessing a computer system without authorisation.

The expansion of laws against unauthorised interception of private communications to encompass communications such as faxes is an overdue and welcome reform. Similarly the criminalising of hacking into computers is beneficial to privacy. However, the bill does not simply criminalise such actions. It also provides exemptions and authorisations for state intrusions of the same type. This represents a significant risk to privacy and the Commissioner's recommendations seek to limit state intrusion and promote appropriate control and accountability when such intrusions are warranted.

Principal recommendations include:

* ensuring that new exemptions to the interception law cannot be made by delegated legislation;
* subjecting Internet service providers and telecommunications network operators to criminal sanctions if they retain, use or disclose private communications obtained during maintenance work;
* delaying exemptions from the new laws for the Government Communication Security Bureau until it is placed on a statutory footing and is subject to an interception warrant process;
* opposing the pernicious practice of police hacking into computer databases;
* calling for full and meaningful public reporting of any state practices involving intercepting non-oral communications and accessing computer systems.

There is also more information generally on NZ privacy up in the EPIC/PI Privacy and Human Rights 2000 Report. [privacyinternational.org]

-Dave