New Australian Privacy Laws Could Have Ramifications On Google Glass

An anonymous reader writes "Recording private conversations or activities using Google's Glass eyewear or similar wearable technologies without consent could become illegal under a push to overhaul Australian state and federal privacy laws. From the article: 'The Australian Law Reform Commission discussion paper, released on Monday morning, recommended 47 legislative changes aimed at updating existing privacy laws for the digital age. It proposed the government introduce a statutory cause of action for a serious invasion of one’s privacy, in what would be the first time a person’s privacy has legally been protected in Australia. It also recommended harmonising rules for using technology to monitor and record authors, which are currently legislated by state governments, to deal with the implications of new technologies such as wearable devices and drones.'"

Comments

Information is not for you

[ShieldW0lf]

Information is for the state. You will not record and share among yourselves. You will not become more aware.

You will not develop the capacity to police yourselves. That is for the state.

Re:Information is not for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly a horrible statist intrusion to prevent people from secretly recording private conversations. That seems like common sense to me.

Re:Information is not for you

[sumdumass]

I would think a law banning a specific use is better thsn a ban on the devices or technology.

It is very dificult to force someone to behave other than they already would without a penalty of some sort. You getting mad won't do it for me. You getting violent will likely fail and result in the episode being all over the net or as the star witnesd at your trial. A law on the other hand would either deter me, stop me from making it public, or make it the star witness at my trial.

So how would you like to see it implemented?

Re:Information is not for you

[TapeCutter]

You will not develop the capacity to police yourselves. That is for the state.

We developed the capacity to police ourselves a long time ago, the tool we use for that is called the rule of law, it's enforced by courts and (wait for it...) the police. If you have a better idea I assure you I and many others are all ears, but the naïve notion that people will nice to each other if "government just gets out of the way" was disproven with every one of the thousands of hippie communes that started and failed in my youth during the late 60's early seventies. It was said to be the largest US internal migration since the civil war, most communes lasted less than two years the main problem being that since politics was taboo, verbal and physical bullying won the day and the group disintegrated, often leaving the bully with a nice piece of real estate and the "quitters" with nothing.

I find it ironic (and endlessly amusing) that the flower power people and the hard core libertarians suffer from the same naïve delusion that people will nice to each other if "government just gets out of the way". Anthropology and even the most tenuous grasp of history says that given the opportunity we won't "just all get along". Without enforceable laws (democratic or otherwise) society would simply not exist beyond the basic extended family tribe, almost by definition "civilization" would be impossible.

Throwing out "the state" is the easy bit, the real problem has always been and will always be - then what, Napoleon, Mugabe? - We already know anarchy does not work, if it did we wouldn't be "trapped" within our respective democratic nation sates at this point in our evolution, right?

Re:Information is not for you

[StripedCow]

But are we still allowed to shoot movies of police officers?

Re:Information is not for you

[Sabriel]

Why did you interpret the GP as objecting to the rule of law? I interpreted the GP as objecting to the rule of tyranny.

Here's my "better idea": instead of making it illegal to record the second party without their consent, make it illegal to volunteer the recording to a third party.

Because that's what we're _really_ objecting to, isn't it? I mean, every human on earth already carries a device that records everything they see and hear for later review anyway. Does it truly matter whether they have another? And what are you going to do when medical technology reaches the point where that existing device (1) can be patched to give everyone's device the same eidetic capability that an existing percentage of the population already has and (2) can be downloaded?

not private

[stenvar]

Google Glass only records from a first person point of view, and is less sensitive than normal human eyes or ears. So, pretty much by definition, if it can be recorded by Google Glass, it isn't private: the person doing the recording needs to be visibly present to record the information.

What such laws are really primarily aimed at are to protect government officials, politicians, and the rich and famous from having their wrongdoings documented.

Re:not private

[mjwx]

Google Glass only records from a first person point of view, and is less sensitive than normal human eyes or ears. So, pretty much by definition, if it can be recorded by Google Glass, it isn't private: the person doing the recording needs to be visibly present to record the information.

Australia is considerably more laid back about public recordings. Currently laws cover publication/syndication rather than recordings. So you can within reason record things in public (including the police) but publishing them without consent is another thing. For example, if I were pulled over and recorded a conversation with a police officer on my dashcam (which is in plain sight) that could be used as evidence to defend myself in court thats fine, but If I publish that video on YouTube, I've done wrong.

Laws on recording private conversations vary from state to state but many police forces in Australia have commented that they don't mind being recorded in public.

But the article is a fluff piece from the AFR (Fairfax media) and the laws haven't be implemented or passed by parliament. In fact they haven't even been introduced into parliament. They're just a proposal from a commission that boils down to nothing more than political grandstanding. It's been a slow news day since Fairfax supports the current government and can only report on the good things they've done.... It's been a slow news day for them since the Abbott government was elected.

Re:not private

[Truth_Quark]

Not necessarily. We already have a similar law in place. It's illegal to videotape you, make pictures of you or record you in any other way unless you give prior consent, unless you are a "person of public interest", i.e. a celebrity, a politician or similar.

Not in Australia.

You are able to make any recording of anyone so long as you do it from public property with a very few particular exceptions.

• You need to obtain consent to use it for commercial purpose
• You need to obtain consent if the person is undressed or engaged in a private act, and they're in circumstances where a reasonable person would reasonably expect to be afforded privacy, and you're taking the photo for sexual gratification
• You can't take an indecent photograph of someone under 16. (That's with or without consent, and unlike the two above, this one is criminal).

There's laws against workplace surveillance by employers, and there are laws against peeping and against being a public nuisance, which means interfering with someone else's enjoyment of a public place, but broadly speaking, if you can see it, you can photograph it.

Re:not private

[Richard_at_work]

I'm sure people would disagree with you that standing at a urinal in a public toilet should still be considered "private", and what you do there should not be able to be recorded by the person stood next to you and replayed for their enjoyment.

Re:not private

[beaverdownunder]

The exception here is if it's an event, or if the individual is behaving in such a way where they are making a spectacle out of themselves. Then, there's an expectation that you might be filmed if you're participating, and you don't have the right to demand your likeness not be published / broadcast.

However, just walking down the street doesn't qualify, and that's where Google Glass gets into trouble since most states expect that if you do take a picture of someone who isn't aware they're being photographed, and don't get their permission, you must obscure or discard their likeness, and essentially ignore their existence (for example, not look them up on-line). Obviously Google Glass is far less useful if it suffers from legally obligatory amnesia.

No change to Google Glass from existing law

[thegarbz]

This article is somewhat alarmist. There's nothing changing for Google Glass. The courts have successfully upheld the old privacy laws regardless of the technology used to invade privacy. The key part here is that the changes in laws doesn't actually change what is classed as private or public.

- It's already illegal to record people in private without their consent, I don't understand where the AFR get's the idea that it's not.
- If you're in a public place you're typically not going to bump into any privacy problems (legally anyway, some people go insane at the sight of a camera).

Despite what the article says, nothing in the proposed changes make it illegal to record a public conversation. Australia's has a long history of case law that covers what is private and what is public. What these laws are doing is simply codifying the rules the court already apply.

Nothing to see here, wearing Google Glass is not going to be illegal and you're free to record anything with Glass that you are free to record without Glass as you would right now. I.e. don't go peeking into your neighbours window.

Is compensation really a ban at all?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

From TFA:

Under the proposal, courts would be able to compensate victims, but the ALRC said it would not propose penalties for offenders.

It doesn't seem clear that they are proposing much of a ban on anything, really. This looks like more of a compensation scheme if someone does infringe on your privacy in this kind of way and you then suffer some significant, financially quantifiable harm from it.

I would argue that many/most infringements on privacy (or the chilling effect that comes from the threat of having your privacy infringed) are not so easily quantifiable, that the law in many places has little meaningful recognition of non-financial damage, and that some behaviours can't be fixed by compensation after the fact anyway. It doesn't look like they're going as far as addressing these issues so far, though.