"More active pursuit of spammers by authorities is one of the recommendations of the NOIE interim report on SPAM," Crompton said. "While we have not actively pursued spam beyond specific complaints received, this is clearly an initiative that the Office could consider if it had additional resources."
The Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner cannot currently run such a case, he said, because its current case load of responses to actual complaints exceeds the number budgeted for by a factor of five. This leaves insufficient resources to run test cases.
Yet with extra funding in hand, Crompton would be keen to pursue a case as the practice of anonymously harvesting e-mail addresses from the Web or newsgroups, which he classifies as "covert collection" is "often in breach of the Privacy Act."
Specifically, this practice may breach National Privacy Principle 1.3 which states that "an organisation [that] collects personal information about an individual must take reasonable steps to ensure that the individual is...aware of the identity of the organisation and how to contact it...and the purposes for which the information is collected."
Principle 1.5 is another Crompton hopes to test, as it asserts that third parties who acquire personal information must take reasonable steps to ensure that individuals are made aware of Principle 1.3.
Crompton is quick to assert, however, that even if he can successfully mount a case, it would not solve the spam problem.
Instead, he believes the combined effect of regulation, technology and the markets will together reduce the problem over time, with consumer demand for effective anti-spam products supporting the regulatory effort to make it harder for spammers to operate.
