The Federal Privacy Commissioner, Mr Malcolm Crompton today called on software pirates and the digital industry to stop claiming "foul play" against each other, when the reality is that each is disregarding the rights of the other. While expressing great sympathy with those trying to protect IP in the online environment, he also questioned whether important privacy rights are being ignored in the push to protect digital rights when he addressed the 11th Biennial Copyright Law and Practice Symposium in Sydney today.

The Commissioner asked what was worse: stealing what isn't yours (i.e., IP) or misusing what isn't yours (i.e., PI). "As Privacy Commissioner I have sympathy for neither," he said.

"I challenge both the digital industry and software pirates to recognise that Digital Rights Management includes both the right of protection for Intellectual Property (IP) and the right of protection for personal information (PI)," said Mr Crompton.

Mr Crompton also challenged owners of IP to be demonstrably transparent about whether, and when, DRM technologies allow very fine grained customer profiling and to allow individuals the choice of not participating. This includes the need for new technologies to be consciously designed as privacy enhancing technologies that prevent accumulation of such data for this kind of secondary purpose.

The conference is hosted by the Australian Copyright Council and Copyright Society of Australia. The Privacy Commissioner's presentation is available at Http://www.privacy.gov.au/materials/types/speeches?sortby=60.