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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-04-01 Daily Xml
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Coronavirus Contact Tracing

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (14:40): For the very last time, I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing, either in his own capacity if he knows the answer, otherwise on behalf of the Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, about destruction of COVID contact tracing data.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: Members might recall that I sent an email to all members some weeks ago, advising that I would be bringing my Emergency Management (Information Security) Amendment Bill to a vote yesterday. After sending that note, I was contacted by officers of the Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services inviting me to meet with representatives of SAPOL, who were concerned that locking in certain details into legislation could make things more difficult and that the same objectives sought to be achieved by my bill could instead be achieved by amendment of the relevant direction under the act.

I met with representatives of SAPOL on 22 March. At that meeting, I was assured that existing data misuse provisions in the act apply to public officials as well as private officials; however, it was conceded that there was no requirement for the data collected under the COVID-SAfe check-in app or paper records to be deleted after 28 days. The government has assured us that this is happening but it isn't mandatory.

Having accepted what SAPOL told me about the need for flexibility in relation to the legal obligations around COVID, I agreed not to progress my bill on the assurance of the police that the binding direction that relates to the COVID check-in regime will be amended to ensure that both electronic and hard copy data must be destroyed after 28 days.

Accordingly, I emailed all members on 23 March advising that I would not be proceeding with my bill; however, on 29 March, four days ago, the latest Emergency Management (Public Activities No 21) (COVID-19) Direction was issued and, as far as I can see, there has been no inclusion of data destruction requirements. My questions of the minister are:

1. Is this an oversight? Have I missed some new requirement elsewhere in the directions or has SAPOL changed its mind about mandating the destruction of this contact tracing data?

2. Should I suggest to my Greens colleagues that they reactivate my bill in order to assure the community that this data, which is being held electronically or in paper form by both government and private businesses, will be destroyed after 28 days?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:43): I thank the honourable member for his question and I certainly will refer to the honourable minister in the other place if he has information he wants to add. My understanding of the communication, which I understand was primarily between yourself and the Attorney-General in the other place in the context of the COVID QR code destruction, was that it wasn't just the issue of destruction but it was also intended that we would refresh the protections.

The honourable member referred to, and I think he misstated, that there were provisions already in relation to misuse of data in the act. My understanding is that they are in the directions—the direction that the honourable member is referring to, the public activities direction, or another one. There is a series of them—

The Hon. M.C. Parnell: They are in both.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: They are in both, are they, good. My understanding is the police are working on finessing those provisions to enhance the responsibilities of at least businesses and possibly even customers. One of the concerns I have had is that not only is it possible for a businessperson to misuse that data and breach the privacy of individuals, but customers can, perhaps through photographic or written contact, also breach the privacy of a person.

My understanding is that that work will take time to be done, but certainly I am not aware of any agency of government stepping back from the commitments given to the Hon. Mark Parnell. I can assure the Hon. Mark Parnell that even beyond the time that he serves in this place this government will seek to follow through on its commitments to him. In that regard, I highlight the discussions that the honourable member had with me in relation to advance care directives. That work will continue.

I do want to stress that the commitment in relation to the QR code data being destroyed was a commitment at the highest level of government. The Premier and I have reiterated it and, to my latest update of 30 March 2021, we have honoured that commitment 88 million times. So far we have deleted 88 million contact records.

In the spirit of my leader, could I take the opportunity to commend the honourable member for his wisdom as a legislator, if you like, in stepping back from an opportunity to move an amendment for the sake of it, but acknowledging that the outcome that he wanted could be achieved another way, a less risky way. What I mean by risky is that I do believe that the honourable member's well-intentioned proposal may well have had unintended consequences.

One of the reasons for that is because this pandemic continues to have unexpected developments. At the very time the honourable member was having discussions with the Attorney-General, our public health team was confronted with wastewater data, wastewater results that were challenging. In trying to think about what we could do to respond there was concern that some of the possible ways that we could get in contact with people would not have been consistent with what was going to be written in the legislation under his proposal.

I make the simple point that we are very determined to honour the spirit of our commitment. We are very happy to put that in the directions and if in the future that direction does not allow us to respond to a public health event, then it will be transparent to the world that we have changed it and people can ask why: why are you doing that and for what purpose?

As I said, we have currently deleted 88 million records and we will continue to delete them in accordance with our commitment. As I said, the commitments that were given by the government, I presume by the Attorney-General and/or by the police, will be honoured.

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