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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-02-22 Daily Xml
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Question Time

PERSONAL DATA

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Consumer Affairs a question about secret and confidential information collected from people's iPhones and iPads.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Few devices know more about people's details than the smartphones we carry and the iPads many of us use; phone numbers, current location, often the owner's real name and even the unique ID number, which can never be changed or turned off. These phones and devices do not keep secrets.

A Wall Street Journal investigation found that this personal data is shared widely and regularly. Examination of 101 popular smartphone apps, games and other software applications for iPhones and Android phones showed that 56 transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without the user's awareness or consent, 47 apps transmitted the phone's location in the same way, and five sent age, gender and other personal details on to outsiders. These findings reveal the intrusive effort made by online tracking companies to gather personal data about people in order to flesh out detailed dossiers on them.

Smartphone users are all but powerless to limit the tracking. With few exceptions, app users cannot opt out of phone tracking. Many apps do not offer even a basic form of consumer protection, which is a written privacy policy. The South Australian Tourism Commission, the Tour Down Under, Adelaide Metro, WOMADelaide and the Fringe all have apps available. People have downloaded apps also for bus and tram timetables from private providers who use government-provided information. My questions are:

1. Can the minister guarantee that people who access Australian government services and agencies by the way of apps are not having their personal information passed on to, or collected by, third parties?

2. If their information is passed on to commercial advertisers, can the minister at least guarantee that people get a warning that their personal identifiers and browser history will be collected and sold, or collected and possibly sold?

3. As neither Apple nor Google requires app privacy policies, can the minister reassure the public that the South Australian government therefore has an even bigger duty to protect those details?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Public Sector Management, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises) (14:25): I thank the honourable member for his most important questions. Indeed, the development of information technology has confronted consumers and various regulating organisations with new, very challenging issues of concern. Many of the issues that the honourable member has referred to are, in fact, matters that really should be referred to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. They are outside the purview of consumer affairs.

In terms of the areas that my department does look at, we have been particularly concerned about scams and suchlike where people are approached in an unsolicited way and personal information is attempted to be taken from consumers under all sorts of guises. One recent one was the tax office scam, where people were ringing, and these operators were believed to be ringing from overseas. They were claiming to be officers from the Australian Taxation Office. There were a number of variations to the scam, but one of them was asking people to give them their personal account details.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: Deal with the question.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Most of the questions that he asked me, Mr President, are outside the purview of my portfolio; they may belong to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. They do not belong to me, so I am talking about those aspects to do with telecommunications and technology scams and privacy that do belong to me. The honourable member obviously does not give a toss about these sorts of issues. He is not interested; he does not care.

These people are trying to gain personal details and account details from consumers and are also asking them to send money so that they can get a tax rebate, and we know that that does not occur. That scam particularly showed us that these operators had a great deal of personal detail about these consumers that they approached. It was not just cold canvassing, and it does beg the question: where did they get this information from?

One of the issues of concern is the sort of information that people divulge about themselves on social networking. We certainly warn people to be very careful about the personal information they divulge. Another concern is people simply going through people's rubbish bins. People are often inclined to toss out bank statements and all sorts of things into their rubbish bin, where personal details can be quite easily gained.

In fact, I was speaking on talkback radio and a gentleman rang in and he said that, in fact, he had done something similar, but in reverse. Someone had been using and filling his rubbish bin regularly and he got sick of it, so he pulled out one of the bundles of rubbish and simply went through the rubbish. He said he could not believe it; he was overwhelmed by the level of personal detail from the person who was abusing his bin.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: He was a bin abuser.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: He was a bin abuser! There is nothing worse than a bin abuser. We want to stamp out bin abusers. So, it does demonstrate how easy it is, and this gentleman was easily able to identify the name, address and telephone number of the person using his bin. He was able to simply confront the person and say, 'Cut it out; use your own bin.'

In those areas that are covered by my responsibilities, we do work very hard to protect consumers. We put out all sorts of statements, information and media alerts reminding people about how important it is not to expose personal details to people. We are very vigilant with that, and we issue those notices quite regularly. As I have said, in relation to the other matters, they are outside my responsibilities. I believe they belong to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, and I suggest that the honourable member contact that office.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Lensink.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Ridgway and the minister have had their turn. The Hon. Ms Lensink.

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