The latest unauthorised release of private information once again demonstrates that Daniel Andrews cannot be trusted to protect the privacy of Victorians.
The details of millions of Victorian’s myki data was improperly released by the Andrews Government, a grievous breach of privacy and trust.
Today’s report on the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner’s investigation into the release of myki data, in its own words “demonstrates that deficiencies in governance and risk management in relation to data can undermine the protection of privacy, even where the project is well-intentioned.”
The report also found that: “Where a data set contains unit-level data about individuals, especially where it contains longitudinal unit-level data about behaviour, … such material may not be suitable for open release, even where extensive attempts have been made to de-identify it”.
The report states: “The evidence before the Deputy Commissioner suggests the identities of individuals can be extracted from the dataset with relative ease. PTV has provided no persuasive evidence to the contrary, and has instead relied on technical arguments about the definition of personal information. The facts before the Deputy Commission show that the dataset contains a wealth of information about the travel movements of Victorians, which was disclosed with no effective controls in place to guard against re-identification”.
How many more times in Daniel Andrews’ Victoria will we be forced to read findings similar to the OVIC’s conclusions of government agencies’ “failure to take reasonable steps to protect the personal information contained in the dataset from disclosure. The steps taken by PTV in both considering Data Science Melbourne’s request for the provision of myki data, and in preparing the dataset for release and use … , were inadequate and not reasonable to protect the information contained in the dataset.”
Comments attributable to the Shadow Minister for Public Transport (Metropolitan), David Davis:
“Earlier this year, in response to the Andrews Government’s request for information regarding Mobile Device Data for Transport Planning, I said: Location data can clearly play a critical role in transport planning provided credible guarantees of anonymity and privacy protections are the first priority.
Daniel Andrews has form on data and has been proven yet again to have zero respect for Victorian individuals’ privacy.
The bottom line is Victorians simply cannot trust Daniel Andrews with their data, even their myki touch-on, irrespective of his Government’s rationalisations for its use.”