The launch overlapped a current Federal Court case involving an airline employee who is seeking compensation for being sacked after distributing union news via company e-mail.
UPDATE Companies get the message from e-mail sacking
Australian corporations will need to rethink their guidelines on e-mail use in the workplace after a court ruling found Ansett illegally sacked an employee for distribution of non-company business via company e-mail system. Ã,Â
FULL UPDATE The Commissioner's guidelines call for organisations to make staff aware of company policy on the use of e-mail and Web browsing, or face a possible spate of unfair dismissal claims if staff are sacked without being properly informed of the rules.Privacy Commissioner Malcolm Crompton referred to a recent report from law firm Freehills that showed 75 percent of Australian organisations surveyed monitored the online activities of staff, but only 35 percent of these organisations told staff about the tracking.
The way companies deal with their customer details is also high on the agenda for the Commissioner's Office (www.privacy.gov.au). As Internet use spirals for consumers, so too do the online services that have the capacity to capture personal information.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics shows a 37 percent increase in the use of the Internet by households in just one year. Meanwhile, an Australian-run Web site called DNAnow (www.dnanow.com) offers a service that can check on the paternity of a child - as long as the customer mails in some strands of hair. Crompton's juxtaposition was deliberate: "Are you a bit worried yet?" he asked media at a briefing in Sydney.
"A Roy Morgan poll last year showed 57 per cent of Australians are concerned about the effects of new technologies on their privacy. We are not alone. Surveys anywhere else in the world reveal roughly the same result," Crompton said.
"The privacy of a person has enormous potential to create or lose money for a business and (the way a company handles its customer data) can either make us feel like individuals with dignity or like lab rats being manipulated," he said.
The Privacy Commissioner is empowered to investigate consumers' complaints, however an investigation "requires reasonable evidence" to be presented to the Commissioner's office. This automatically requires vigilance on the part of the individual, who must have more than a hunch if a company is secretly selling their details elsewhere. At the time of interview, Crompton was unable to specify the typical time frame for complaint resolution.
The Commissioner's broad online privacy strategy' called Privacy Connections, combines self-regulation, codes of conduct and a -light-touch" legal framework, which the Attorney General Daryl Williams is expected to introduce to Parliament in April.
Under the bill, businesses will be permitted to develop their own codes for privacy, but these must offer at least as much protection as the national principles (to be outlined in the legislation) for the handling of information.
Attorney-General Williams said company codes must then be approved by the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner and that companies must prove they are able to correct recordings of personal data if it is wrong.
The necessary legal framework behind the privacy initiatives has been described as -light-touch" as a way of indicating that it has the flexibility to stay relevant, despite the face pace of technological change.
"The Government has announced a light touch approach. If you think the law can't keep up with technology then this is certainly the right approach," Crompton said.
Interestingly, Australia's Internet censorship legislation, which came into effect at the beginning of the year, was also described as "light-touch" by exponents.
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