UNSW Canberra Institute for Cyber Security’s Enterprise Director Nigel Phair says community goodwill towards data collection for COVID-19 safety measures will “evaporate pretty quick” if the data is seen to be misused by police and government.
There has been significant controversy in the past week over law enforcement agencies seeking to use QR code check-in data to solve crimes, with the nation’s privacy watchdog calling for a ban on police having the ability to access the data.
Mr Phair said one of the “golden rules” of collecting names, addresses, and any other personally identifying information is “it doesn’t get reused for other purposes”.
“Whilst we have an awful lot of goodwill out there in the community at the moment, that will evaporate pretty quick if they think police are going to use this data to solve crime.
“If you have a crime that might take place in a shopping centre, for example, we’ve got a couple of instances in Queensland and Western Australia where police have sought to see who was there at the time based on the check-in data.”
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