Australia’s Biometric Bills May Breach Human Rights

Addressing Australia’s Joint Intelligence and Security Committee this week, Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow said that the country’s identity-matching bills will have an unprecedented impact on Australians’ privacy and are likely to be in violation of human rights.

Santow said that there are four main concerns with regards to the Identity-matching Services Bill 2018 and the Australian Passports Amendment (Identity-matching Services) Bill 2018, which is Proportionality, autonomy, lack of democratic oversight, and the risk of fraud and other unintended consequences.

The Commissioner added that protections have not been written into the bills. He further argued that the bills allow sharing of information so broad that it could give authorities and intelligence bodies almost unrestricted power.

Source: ZDNet