27 October 2008

The Australian Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, has welcomed the NSW Law Reform Commission's (NSWLRC) proposal to reform NSW privacy law to achieve national consistency.

"It makes little sense for there to be overlapping privacy laws with differing privacy standards between jurisdictions," Ms Curtis said.

"This situation simply increases the burden on agencies and organisations in meeting their privacy obligations, as well as making it difficult for the public to understand their privacy rights.

"It is for this reason that there should be uniformity in privacy regulation across the country."

Ms Curtis' position on the NSWLRC's proposal was made in a submission in response to its Consultation Paper 3, "Privacy legislation in NSW", and is consistent with her submissions to the recently completed Australian Law Reform Commission's privacy law inquiry.

The submission to the NSWLRC's proposal also supports private sector health information being solely regulated by the federal Privacy Act.

"At present, it is not unimaginable that private medical practitioners in border towns such as Albury and Wodonga may need to be across three differing sets of health privacy law, federal, NSW and Victorian, when treating local patients," Ms Curtis said.

"This inconsistency causes uncertainty and complexity in the health sector, as well as being a challenge to developments on e-health."

Other issues the submission supports include:

• State-owned corporations should be covered by privacy law.
• Limiting NSW privacy law to NSW public sector agencies.