IDENTITY FACE-OFF

Tassie photos sent to Feds

PHOTOS of Tasmanians have been sent to Canberra for a national facial recognition database, despite new laws being blocked in Federal Parliament.

A State Government spokesman has confirmed the state’s driver’s licence images have been uploaded to a “secure” system, prompting a warning over privacy from an expert in bioethics.

“There is always a risk it can be accessed by people that shouldn’t access it,’’ University of Tasmania academic Frederic Gilbert said.

PHOTOS of Tasmanians are already being uploaded to a “secure” system in preparation for the rollout of a national identity database.

It has prompted an expert on bio-ethics to warn of privacy dangers, amid news of the facial recognition legislation hitting a roadblock in Canberra.

University of Tasmania academic Frederic Gilbert said he was surprised to hear some states had started providing data when the laws had not yet been passed by federal parliament.

“There is always a risk it can be accessed by people that shouldn’t access it,’’ he said.

Dr Gilbert said the aim of the legislation — to crack down on identity fraud — had to be balanced with the issue of privacy and protecting the rights of citizens.

He agreed with other critics of the laws that it could lead to a mass surveillance scheme.

A State Government spokesman said changes were made to Tasmanian regulations in 2017 to permit disclosure of Tasmanian driver licence information as part of the face-matching service.

“Tasmania commenced the upload of driver licence data into the FMS earlier this year into a segregated and protected area,’’ the spokesman said.

“Victoria has also uploaded its driver licence data into the FMS and all state and territory governments have committed to this process.

“Tasmania has uploaded our driver licence information to the secure system in preparation for the full nationwide rollout. Until the system is operational this data will not be available for face-matching services.”

The spokesman said licence application forms contained a notice that the image data will be added to the FMS but images would not be released unless required for regulatory and law enforcement reasons.

Last week, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton vowed to press on with the facial recognition laws, despite a bipartisan committee telling him to go back to the drawing board.

Under the plan, driver’s licence, passport and visa images would be stored by the Department of Home Affairs.

Parliament’s intelligence and security committee blocked the legislation, telling the Government to redraft the legislation and put stronger safeguards in place.

Liberal chair of the committee Andrew Hastie said more explanation was needed on how the laws would protect the rights of Australians.