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Week of April 10 2023

Proposed privacy law upsets media houses fearful of lawsuits
look at the big picture, say rights advocates

Of the many results from digital transition legal frameworks continue to change. Media outlets have alternatively supported and fought these new measures. Privacy law is on the agenda in Australia.

The Australian Attorney General’s office, after investing two years of study, has proposed reforms bringing privacy laws up to speed for the internet. It’s a tall order. Other countries have gone down this path only to run square into entrenched interests.

Nearly every Australian publisher, broadcaster, media union and trade associations has gone on record opposing rules that would jeopardize the “journalism exemption” that enshrines self-regulation. To present their case, they have formed a coalition - Australia’s Right To Know (ARTK). Everybody wants to be self-regulated; from the average six-year old to Rupert Murdoch. It is almost as good as no regulation, favored by Elon Musk. (See more about privacy law here)

The proposed changes to the current Privacy Act would allow individuals to bring civil claims for invasion of civil privacy. Individuals would also have the right to be “de-indexed” from internet search results, including the archives of news agencies. In addition the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner would be given investigative powers to “search for and seize documents.” (See more about media in Australia here)

“The watering down of the journalism exemption will have a detrimental impact on smaller media organisations and lead to a significant decrease in journalism,” said the ARTK statement, quoted by Australian Financial Review (April 10), which is an ARTK signatory. “The use of the tort in this way by individuals as a sword to suppress information inevitably leads to a chilling effect on reporting and significantly limits the media’s ability to seek out and disseminate information of public concern. Media archives form an important historical record, the maintenance of which is indisputably in the public interest.”

Digital rights advocate Center for Responsible Technology wants a voice for public interest over commercial media models. The proposed privacy law reforms, said director Peter Lewis, quoted by Guardian Australia (April 10), are “the first significant upgrade of privacy laws in four decades. The business models around the commercial exploitation of personal data have grown exponentially as have the human consequences of these models.” The Center for Responsible Technology is part of the progressive Australia Institute.

“There is a legitimate limitation on the right to privacy that journalism can justify,” offered former Australian human rights commissioner Ed Santow, supportive of the reform package. “But it’s not that all media organisations in all their activities – some which have nothing to do with journalism at all – should be exempt from the right to privacy.”

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