Chair’s Report to the AGM, by Roger Clarke
Your Board has continued its very strong commitment to the protection of privacy in Australia. It adopts constructive approaches wherever possible, and defends against unjustifiably privacy-invasive initiatives wherever necessary.
The strong focus is on careful, evidence-based policy development. A great many media backgrounders are provided, and media releases are issued when the Board believes that a more activist stance may be productive.
The quantum of policy documents produced this year was the largest yet. The scale and diversity of the work can be appreciated by scanning down the index.
During the last 2 years, we’ve begun a gradual switch in emphasis from reactions to other organisations’ initiatives to a larger number of proactive activities by the APF. Policy statements have been drafted, debated, refined and published in six topic-areas during the last 12 months.
Another development in recent years has been the formation of Sub-Committees as a means both of supporting a degree of specialisation within the Board and drawing additional input from both members and broader ‘reference groups’ outside the APF.
We owe a debt of gratitude to those who have committed, and continue to commit, a great deal of time and energy. Once again, Nigel Waters has led the way on policy work; and since taking up the role of Chair of the Health SubCommittee, Juanita Fernando has made enormous contributions across the wide and currently highly topical field of health care records and eHealth initiatives generally.
There are many ways in which members can provide assistance to the APF.
If you’re not sure whether the rigours of policy analysis are the right thing for you, there’s a substantial set of resources on the web-site, and these need maintenance and enhancement.
Contributions would be greatly appreciated to the vital lists of relevant organisations, media contact-points, relevant Ministers in the country’s 9 jurisdictions, and the laws of the Commonwealth, and the States and Territories.
The Big Brother Awards are being run again this year, convened by a long-time contributor to the APF who recently returned to the Board. This is a further area that offers opportunities to members to contribute to privacy protection in Australia.