International Law

Senator Ronaldson (Liberal Victoria) seems to have a bee in his bonnet about 'conflict of interest" and security of data in the proposed Information Commission office, matters that don't appear to have led to problems elsewhere when FOI and privacy oversight have been placed in a single agency.(New Zealand even manages to include the Ombudsman in the same office, apparently satisfactorily, as well.) The answers suggest preparations have matters under control.

Privacy Commission officials said the Office has had 912 complaints this financial year. There were a couple of (justified) questions about the practice of measuring performance on the basis of dealing with complaints within 12 months. The score is 82% but 12 months is hardly a target time frame likely to bring plaudits from those with a gripe.Ten to 13 per cent of complaints are about the public sector, 17 per cent about credit-reporting and 60-odd per cent relate to the private sector.Health, finance and telecommunications providers are the three largest areas of complaint. The Commissioner rates public sector performance highly[41]:

"By and large the Australian Public Service does a great job at handling personal information. When you consider the huge number of transactions that occur on a daily basis with, say, Medicare and Centrelink, the fact that we receive in total probably a little over 100 complaints a year about public sector agencies?the ATO, Medicare, Centrelink and the Child Support Agency?I think our public servants do a very good job. That does not mean that there is not an opportunity to improve their performance."

Full post as published by Open and Shut on May 27, 2009 (boomark / email).