Report of the Legal & Regulatory Affairs Committee 13/04/02

Report Adopted by the Council Meeting of 13 April 2002

The major activity since the last council meeting has centred on the Telecommunications Information Privacy Code ("the Code") and to a far lesser extent on the Customs & Excise Amendment Bill No 4.

1. The Code

We have worked with Internet Safety Group ("ISG"), Police, DIA, SFO, Dept of Education etc to raise awareness of this and its ramifications. In particular, it was agreed that ISG would spearhead the public awareness raising by issuing a press release but that Rick Shera and Ian Hassall (immediate past Children's' Commissioner and now a children's' advocate) would be referenced as contact points. The release got major media attention, resulting in Liz Butterfield, Ian Hassall and Rick Shera being interviewed on prime time TVOne (evening and breakfast), TV3, RadioNZ and various newspapers.

Following on from the Committee drafted a submission on the Code which was submitted on 22 March and is available on the InternetNZ website.

The Privacy Commission will be holding public fora to which we will be invited so we will continue to work in this area.

It should also be noted that the opportunity to continue to work with ISG was useful.

As a result of this work, Rick Shera has been nominated by NZCS as a candidate for the "Most Significant Achievement in IT" award in the Computerworld Excellence awards for work on Internet Safety.

All in all, excellent publicity for InternetNZ.

2. Customs & Excise Amendment Bill No4

We only became aware of this Bill on 21 March and with submissions on it due to close on 22 March could do little more than review it. Rick Shera did however manage to talk to Keith Locke who is a member of the Select Committee considering it. The concern is that the Bill introduces a power for Customs to prosecute for the importation over the internet of material which is objectionable in terms of the Films, Videos and Publications Act. Apart from issues about what importation means in the context of the internet (ie is it server location, residence of sender etc etc) the major issue is whether this means that Customs will be sniffing internet traffic to detect objectionable material. We spoke to the policy person in Customs who has been their liaison person on this and he indicated that they would not. It would not appear that this power is given in the Bill and therefore that they will only collect evidence by way of search warrant, but it is not entirely clear. Hopefully the heads up to Keith Locke who is active in highlighting these issues generally, will serve the purpose.

3. Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Bill

This bill is still being drafted but the PR on it to date indicates that this will be a major piece of legislation in terms of the balance between privacy and law enforcement. It looks as though it will be akin to the UK's draconian RIP Act in allowing remote interception and breaking of encryption etc. In our submissions on the Crimes Amendment Bill No6 we raised concerns about remote interception and about the undermining of encryption and therefore we will look to reassess those positions in the light of this bill when it eventuates. The law Commission has also issued a discussion paper in this area which is available on their site.

4. Recently Rick Shera was interviewed by Alan Marston of PlanetTV for his site and for Triangle (Auckland) and another of the regional TV stations on the Crimes Amendment Bill, interception, privacy etc. Apparently this went to air on Triangle in the last few days.

5. The committee also has a role in offering comments on the various SRS contracts which have recently been sent to us by the SRS Implementation team.

Rick Shera
L&R Affairs Committee Chair

© 2002 The Internet Society of New Zealand
Last updated 12 April 2002