Australians could be denied news stories that reveal unflattering details about celebrities, politicians and other people with high public profiles thanks to proposed new privacy laws, media organisations have warned.
The changes to the Privacy Act have been drafted in response to growing concerns about people’s right to confidentiality in the internet age, and contain penalties for doxxing – maliciously sharing someone’s private details without their knowledge online.
But a coalition of the nation’s major broadcasters and media outlets, including Nine (the publisher of this website), the ABC, SBS, Seven West, Ten, The Guardian and News Corp, has warned the laws will have a “chilling” effect on journalism and the public’s right to be informed.
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“The government may achieve its objectives of increasing the privacy of individuals with this bill, but at the same time, it will be decreasing the ability of Australians to understand the political, social, and economic matters which are vital to their participation in democracy,” a submission from the alliance earlier this month stated.
The coalition, called Australia’s Right To Know (ARTK), said the exemptions in the latest version of the legislation for journalism are far too narrow.
It says that will lead to them being used as de-facto defamation laws to silence unflattering stories that the public has a right to know.
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“(Similar laws) very much become tools of celebrities, politicians and wealthy public figures to essentially stifle the publication of information that might be at odds with whatever public persona they seek to portray,” Nine executive counsel Kiah Officer told a parliamentary committee yesterday.
“There is a real public interest in limiting the ability of people to stifle those reports and also to utilise the courts in order to suppress examinations of their activities.”
ARTK has called for a series of amendments to the proposed legislation, including a more robust exemption for journalists and publishers.
Privacy advocates have called for the laws to be passed as soon as possible, saying Australia’s current privacy legislation is out of date.
Nine is the publisher of this website.
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