atw: Privacy Legislation

Hi everyone, sorry to flog a dead horse!
The last mail I sent in left me musing. There are a number of issues about 
the privacy legislation that have proven to be quite open to 
interpretation.
It is an awkward, untried and largely misunderstood piece of law, because 
it is badly written in the first place.

The spirit of the legislation is to protect us, you and I, from people who 
are unscrupulous, and that includes anyone who for whatever reason might 
decide to use your personal information in a fashion that detriments you 
in some way. This includes recruitment agents, banking groups, financial 
people, private investigators for insurance reasons particularly, and 
criminals, training or marketing agencies, and the list goes on. 

An example is my families medical history, one of stroke and cerebral 
haemorrhage; without privacy legislation, I would now not be eligible for 
my life insurance, even for things like a car accident or such.

In that sense it does work very well. Unfortunately it tends to work too 
well, and there lies the many problems.
To get some idea of what I have had to go through, check out this website: 
www.dapsco.com.au and see some of the stuff we have to comply with. That 
system is preventing criminal behaviour.

I like that Australia has a strong sense of protecting its citizens, but I 
also wonder at some of the methods we are engaging to protect ourselves. 
As a society we have so much to admire, but we seem to be slap dash happy 
and often half do the job, or we go so far as to make our lives very 
difficult (look at risk assessment issues in NSW schools). When you think 
about our constitution, and the amazing quality that is in there, it seems 
a shame to have made as many stuff ups like privacy legislation and OH&S 
issues since...

Ultimately it is all up to us; but do we, enveloped in our sophisticated 
apathy as much as we are, care enough to fix it properly? 

Have a great vote in October everyone!
Warren.

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