The Australian Privacy Foundation has prepared a background brief on all the privacy omnishambles at the request of the UN Special Rapporteur on Privacy Professor Joseph Cannataci. This request arose following a meeting of civil society representatives in Sydney in late July 2018, where issues of privacy in Australia were discussed.

In the brief, we first provide an overview of some of the systemic issues in Australia’s human rights and privacy framework, followed by an examination of some of the recent symptomatic manifestations of these systemic issues. We conclude the brief with a list of key recommendations for the UN Special Rapporteur on Privacy to consider in the Australian context.