Many organisations and individuals have contributed to a long history of campaigns against privacy intrusions and in favour of privacy protections. This page provides reference information on a few of them. The purpose is to provide examples of wins and losses, and examples of effective and not-so-effective campaigning. To provide context, some key events in the history of privacy in Australia are inter-leaved with the campaigns.

In many of the campaigns documented here, the APF was prime mover or a major contributor. But others were run, or significantly contributed to, by other organisations. Many of those organisations are still active and their contact-points are listed on this site; but some of them were formed for the purpose of particular campaigns and no longer exist. Further details can be sought in the many papers authored by the APF.

Please advise the web-team of suggested corrections and improvements to this page, and about additional campaigns that should be documented here.

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The Early Years

• Zelman Cowen’s ABC Boyer Lecture Series (1969)
• Balanced privacy protection legislation (led by the Australian Computer Society) (1972-74)
• The Morison Report (1973)
• The N.S.W. Privacy Committee Act (1975)
• The Australian Law Reform Commission Report on Privacy (1976-83)
• N.S.W. Guidelines for the Operation of Personal Data Systems (1977)

The 1980s

• O.E.C.D. Data Protection Guidelines (1980)
• The Freedom of Information Act (Cth) (1982)
• The Australia Card Campaign (1985-87), which was the cauldron in which the APF was formed. See also Clarke (1987), Greenleaf (1987), Greenleaf (1988) and Davies (2004)
• The Australian Law Reform Commission Report on Spent Convictions (1987)
• The Privacy Bill (Cth) (1988)
• The Privacy Act (1988), regulating the Commonwealth Public Sector
• The Tax File Number (1988-91, 1999). See also Clarke (1992)
• The Credit Reporting Amendments to the Privacy Act (Cth) (1989)
• The Crimes Legislation Amendment Act 1989, which addressed spent convictions. See also Knowler (1994)

1990-1995

• The Privacy Act Amendment Act (1990), regulating Credit Reporting
• The N.S.W. ICAC Report on Corrupt Uses of DSS, HIC and Motor Registry Data (1991-92), Volumes I (includes a summary of the investigation), II (Part 1), II (Part 2), III (Part 1), and III (Part 2)
• Data Matching Programs (1991-93). See also Clarke (1994)
• The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (1991 et seq.)
• Positive Credit Reporting (1991 et seq.). See also Greenleaf (1992)
• The Law Enforcement Access Network (LEAN) (1992-94). See also Greenleaf (1994)
• The Australian Privacy Charter (1992-94)
• Workplace Surveillance (1993 et seq.). See also Nolan (1995a , 1995b , 1995c , 2000a , 2000b), Johnston & Cheng (2003a, 2003b)
• Successive Courts hold that patients have no legal right to access to the records about them held by medical practitioners (1994-96). See also Hamblin (1994), Waters (1994), Gaudin (1995), Gaudin (1996), Ireland (1996)
• Calling Number Display (CND) (1995-97). See also PLPR (1994)

1996-1999

• Commonwealth Government Outsourcing (1996 et seq.). See also Rawlings (2001)
• The Victorian Data Protection Advisory Council, and the resultant Information Privacy Bill (1996, 1999)
• The A.C.T. Health Records (Privacy And Access) Act 1997. See also Patterson (2000)
• The National Principles for the Fair Handling of Personal Data in the Private Sector (1997-98), including the Campaign for Fair Privacy Laws. See also Greenleaf & Waters (1998) and Greenleaf (1998)
• Biometrics (1997 et seq.). See also Waters (2002), Clarke (2003)
• The Integrated Public Number Database (IPND) (1997 et seq.). See also Raiche (1997)
• The Gatekeeper Public Key Infrastructure Norms(1997 et seq.). See also Greenleaf (1998, 2001)
• The Stott-Despoja Genetic Privacy Bill (1997)
• The A.C.T. Health Records (Privacy and Access) Bill 1997. See also Waters (1998)
• The N.S.W. Privacy and Personal Information Protection Bill 1998 (1998), for 2 years the world’s worst privacy legislation
• The N.S.W. Workplace Video Surveillance Act 1998
• ACIF Industry Code for the ‘Protection of Personal Information of Customers of Telecommunications Providers’ (1998-99)
• The Australian Direct Marketing Authority’s Code of Conduct (1998 et seq.)
• The Private Sector Provisions of the Privacy Act (Cth) (1999-2000, 2004-05)

2000-2005

• The Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000, the world’s worst privacy legislation, or anti-privacy legislation, whichever you prefer
• The Victorian Information Privacy Act (2000). See also Greenleaf (2000)
• Acceptable Use Policy for Employee Use of the Internet (EFA-led) (2000). See also EFA (2000)
• The Internet whois database (2001)
• The Victorian Health Records Act 2001. See also Carter (2000)
• The Northern Territory Information Act (2002)
• The Spam Act (EFA-led) (2002-03)
• Mandatory Display of Calling-Number ID to ISPs (EFA-led) (2002-04)
• ENUM (2002-04)
• The Australian Law Reform Commission Report on The Protection of Human Genetic Information (2003)
• The N.S.W. Government’s Campaign to Emasculate the N.S.W. Privacy Commission (2003 et seq.)
• The Queensland Government Proposal for a Smartcard-based Driver’s Licence (2003-04)
• Telecommunications Surveillance (2003-04)
• The APEC Privacy Framework (2003-04)
• The replacement Passports Act and Biometric Passports (2005-06)
• The N.S.W. Photo Card Bill (2005)
• The Proposed Changes to the Census 2006 (2005)

See also the APF Campaigns page for links to current campaigns.

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