New powers to track phones

Police and other emergency services may get new powers to track down people who they believe need help or who may harm others, by tapping into the location of their smartphone.

Privacy Commissioner John Edwards is consulting on a change to the Telecommunications Information Privacy Code that would allow emergency services to access people’s smartphone location in some situations, even if the smartphone owner had not called 111 as is currently required.

Edwards expected the main uses of the new powers would be to help track missing people, such as motorists who might have crashed but not been able to call for help, or Alzheimer’s patients who were thought to be at risk of injuring themselves.

But he confirmed they could also be used for some types of crime prevention, for example to intercept people who were suspected of being about to commit domestic violence.

‘‘If there was somebody who had a very clearly expressed objective of causing someone some harm and the police wanted to activate the system to ascertain their current or most recent location, they would be able to do that,’’ he said.

‘‘The threshold is ‘serious threat’, so the kinds of factors to be taken into account are the nature of the risk – how serious it is – and the ‘imminence’; is it going to happen very soon?.

His understanding was the system would normally work any time a phone was switched on.

Telecommunications Forum chief executive Geoff Thorn, speaking on behalf of the major telcos, said Edwards’ interpretation might be correct based on the proposed wording of the code change.

But he did not envisage the new powers would be used for law enforcement, saying there were separate mechanisms to require mobile phone companies to hand over information to police in those situations.

‘‘I would say if a crime were involved and police could use their normal production orders and those processes, they should be used.

‘‘The industry would prefer the police used the powers they [already] have for criminal activities because there are safeguards in place for use of those powers.

‘‘There are some safeguards in place here, but the industry’s preference is that if the police have got powers for dealing with criminal activities they should be using those. You could interpret the code as going that far, but I don’t think the police would support that either,’’ he said.

The proposed change to the privacy code was a great initiative, Thorn said.

‘‘We think it will make life easier for emergency services and reduce the search time and the level of resources required, which is what search and rescue and police are actually after.’’

Submissions on the proposed privacy code change close on February 28.