Widely respected Victorian state Liberal member of parliament, Victor
Perton, is reported on the front page of The Age as calling for
federal privacy legislation.
The first few paras from Garth Boreham's article, which you can read
at:
http://www.theage.com.au/daily/971027/news/news3.html
A prominent State Government MP has called for wide-ranging
private data protection laws, warning that society risked "losing
some of its humanity" without stricter privacy legislation.
Mr Victor Perton, the chairman of State Parliament's law reform
committee, said that with the advent of high-tech computer
databases, delays in cracking down on privacy breaches would be
tragic for the community.
He said Victoria was developing privacy laws to cover data
protection by Government and private agencies, but federal
legislation would be preferable.
"Unless we have private data- protection laws regulating all
sectors of Australia, we risk losing some of our humanity,
becoming mere biological subjects of data profiles,
psychologically manipulated to act, consume and vote according to
the desires of the so-called spin doctors," Mr Perton said.
Victor Perton is apparently the first Australian member of
parliament to have a web site:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~victorp/
"This site is focussed on liberalism, human rights and law reform."
This site has the text of the speech which was reported in the
article.
Not on the Age web site is a carton by (??) Wilcox. Suited.
blank-eyed businessman sits in large power-chair, under the title of
" 'Private' Sector" and says:
"Thanks to databases, what used to be none of our business
is now a large part of our business."
- Robin
| Robin Whittle Consumer advocacy in telecommunications, |
| especially privacy. |
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| First Principles Research and expression - music, tele- |
| communications, Internet music marketing,|
| human factors in technology adoption. |
| Consulting and technical writing. |
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| Real World Interfaces Electronics and software for music. |
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