Tag Archives: police

Why police should not be responsible for enforcing COVID vaccine certificates

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Vincent Hurley, Macquarie UniversityWith states and territories beginning to plan their reopening strategies, questions have been raised about whether vaccination passports or certificates will be required to enter public venues – and who will be checking these documents.

The National Retail Association has said the “onus cannot be on the retailer” to enforce vaccine certificate compliance due to the potential for customer abuse. The group is calling on the police to do this.

In New South Wales, the health minister initially insisted police would be enforcing vaccine certificates. The NSW police commissioner, however, said police will not be doing so unless asked by venue owners.

The police commissioner has reason to be hesitant. The policing of vaccinations is not a criminal justice issue, it is a health issue. So why should we expect the police to enforce vaccine certificates?

If police are asked to take on this role, they would have to navigate their way through a “non-crime issue” being watched and critiqued by politicians, the retail sector, the health sector and the community at large.

This would place unfair expectations and undue pressure on our officers to handle a sensitive – not to mention time-consuming – task they should not be asked to do.



Read more:
COVID has changed policing — but now policing needs to change to respond better to COVID

How other countries are enforcing vaccine passports

Similar questions of enforcement are being raised in other countries that are rolling out COVID vaccine passports.

In the United States and United Kingdom, police have largely resisted taking on the responsibility for checking vaccine certificates, although this may change with the proliferation of fake vaccination cards being sold online and through the health sector.

In Switzerland, police will be responsible for ensuring compliance of the vaccine checks at public establishments, but due to lack of resources, this will only amount to spot checks or responding to businesses that ask for help. One canton said it will take a soft approach, with a spokeswoman saying

it is very important for us to proceed in a proportionate manner and with common sense.

In Israel, police will be stepping up enforcement of the country’s “green passes” at public venues. But officers will not be checking people at entrances; rather, they will focus on ensuring venue owners are enforcing the rules.

The constant checking of people’s vaccination status by authorities could be construed as one of the hallmarks of a police state; indeed, this is how China’s digital health code system operates.



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China’s ‘surveillance creep’: how big data COVID monitoring could be used to control people post-pandemic

If the police universally apply harsh or zero-tolerance policing at the behest of the state without the consent of population, we would in essence be living in a police state. Or worse, a place where police use excessive force under the guise of pandemic social control, such as in the Philippines.

Thankfully, our police have not had to take such a heavy-handed approach to enforce public health restrictions as the vast majority of people have put their trust in institutions and followed the rules.

The problem with using police in this way

But using the police to enforce vaccine certificates for entry into public venues would further shift what is essentially a public health issue into a law-enforcement issue.

The focus will increasingly turn to the police’s ability or inability to manage compliance with public health orders, and police will be on the receiving end of any societal backlash should this enforcement meet with resistance.

Public trust in the police was much higher than that of the government, political parties and the media at the start of the pandemic.

But changing the role of police could erode public confidence in the institution, as police officials have previously warned during the pandemic.



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Police access to COVID check-in data is an affront to our privacy. We need stronger and more consistent rules in place

Enforcing vaccine certificates is also not the best use of police resources. This would take away from the ability of police to respond to other crimes that are of concern during the pandemic, such as domestic violence and cyber crime.

Police resources are already stretched thin in both Australia and overseas. In the UK, for instance, police officers have been retrained to become temporary ambulance drivers to make up for staffing shortfalls, taking them away from their daily policing roles.

The police is the only domestic agency that has the social mandate to enforce the law, maintain public order and protect life and, if necessary, use force in this process. (Not even the military can do this.) It is because of this far-reaching mandate that police have been called upon to enforce public health orders.

The ease with which governments can ask or demand police to serve certain roles gives forces little – and in some cases no – room to question these decisions. In this case, officers are being asked to police a disease, not a crime, and we should think twice about putting them in this position.The Conversation

Vincent Hurley, Lecturer in Criminology. Police and policing., Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Police access to COVID check-in data is an affront to our privacy. We need stronger and more consistent rules in place

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Graham Greenleaf, UNSW and Katharine Kemp, UNSWThe Australian Information Commissioner this week called for a ban on police accessing QR code check-in data, unless for COVID-19 contact tracing purposes.

State police have already accessed this data on at least six occasions for unrelated criminal investigations, including in Queensland and Western Australia — the latter of which has now banned this. Victorian police also attempted access at least three times, according to reports, but were unsuccessful.

The ACT is considering a law preventing police from engaging in such activity, but the position is different in every state and territory.

We need cooperation and clarity regarding how COVID surveillance data is handled, to protect people’s privacy and maintain public trust in surveillance measures. There is currently no consistent, overarching law that governs these various measures — which range from QR code check-ins to vaccine certificates.



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Australia has all but abandoned the COVIDSafe app in favour of QR codes (so make sure you check in)

Last week the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner released a set of five national COVID-19 privacy principles as a guide to “best practice” for governments and businesses handling personal COVID surveillance data.

But we believe these principles are vague and fail to address a range of issues, including whether or not police can access our data. We propose more detailed and consistent laws to be enacted throughout Australia, covering all COVID surveillance.

Multiple surveillance tools are being used

There are multiple COVID surveillance tools currently in use in Australia.

Proximity tracking through the COVIDSafe app has been available since last year, aiming to identify individuals who have come into contact with an infected person. But despite costing millions to develop, the app has reportedly disclosed only 17 unique unknown cases.

Over the past year we’ve also seen widespread attendance tracking via QR codes, now required by every state and territory government. This is probably the most extensive surveillance operation Australia has ever seen, with millions of check-ins each week. Fake apps have even emerged in an effort to bypass contact tracing.

In addition, COVID status certificates showing vaccination status are now available on MyGov (subject to problems of registration failure and forgery). They don’t yet display COVID test results or COVID recovery status (as they do in countries in the European Union).

It’s unclear exactly where Australian residents will need to show COVID status certificates, but this will likely include for travel between states or local government areas, attendance at events (such as sport events and funerals) and hospitality venues, and in some “no jab no job” workplaces.

As a possible substitute for hotel quarantine, South Australia is currently testing precise location tracking to enable home quarantine. This combines geolocation tracking of phones with facial recognition of the person answering the phone.
Shutterstock

The proposed principles don’t go far enough

The vague privacy principles proposed by Australia’s privacy watchdogs are completely inadequate in the face of this complexity. They are mostly “privacy 101” requirements of existing privacy laws.

Here they are summarised, with some weaknesses noted.

  1. Data minimisation. The personal information collected should be limited to the minimum necessary to achieve a legitimate purpose.
  2. Purpose limitation. Information collected to mitigate COVID-19 risks “should generally not be used for other purposes”. The term “generally” is undefined, and police are not specifically excluded.
  3. Security. “Reasonable steps” should be taken to protect this data. Data localisation (storing it in Australia) is mentioned in the principles, but data encryption is not.
  4. Data retention/deletion. The data should be deleted once no longer needed for the purpose for which it was collected. But there is no mention of a “sunset clause” requiring whole surveillance systems to also be dismantled when no longer needed.
  5. Regulation under privacy law. The data should be protected by “an enforceable privacy law to ensure individuals have redress if their information is mishandled”. The implied call for South Australia and Western Australia to enact privacy laws is welcome.

A proposal for detailed and consistent laws

Since COVID-19 surveillance requirements are justified as “emergency measures”, they also require emergency quality protections.

Last year, the federal COVIDSafe Act provided the strongest privacy protections for any category of personal information collected in Australia. Although the app was a dud, the Act was not.

The EU has enacted thorough legislation for EU COVID digital certificates, which are being used across EU country borders. We can learn from this and establish principles that apply to all types of COVID surveillance in Australia. Here’s what we recommend:

  1. Legislation, not regulations, of “emergency quality”. Regulations can be changed at will by the responsible minister, whereas changes in legislation require parliamentary approval. Regarding COVID surveillance data, a separate act in each jurisdiction should state the main rules and there should be no exceptions to these — not even for police or ASIO.
  2. Prevent unjustifiable discrimination. This would include preventing discrimination against those who are unable to get vaccinated such as for health reasons, or those without access to digital technology such as mobile phones. In the EU, it’s free to obtain a paper certificate and these must be accepted.
  3. Prohibit and penalise unauthorised use of data. Permitted uses of surveillance data should be limited, with no exceptions for police or intelligence. COVID status certificates may be abused by employers or venues that decide to grant certain rights privileges based on them, without authorisation by law.
  4. Give individuals the right to sue. If anyone breaches the acts we propose above for each state, individuals concerned should be able to sue in the courts for compensation for an interference with privacy.
  5. Prevent surveillance creep. The law should make it as difficult as possible for any extra uses of the data to be authorised, say for marketing or town planning.
  6. Minimise data collection. The minimum data necessary should be collected, and not collected with other data. If data is only needed for inspection, it should not be retained.
  7. Ongoing data deletion. Data must be deleted periodically once it is no longer needed for pandemic purposes. In the EU, COVID certificate data inspected for border crossings is not recorded or retained.
  8. A “sunset clause” for the whole system. Emergency measures should provide for their own termination. The law requires the COVIDSafe app to be terminated when it’s no longer required or effective, along with its data. A similar plan should be in place for QR-code data and COVID status certificates.
  9. Active supervision and reports. Privacy authorities should have clear obligations to report on COVID surveillance operations, and express views on termination of the system.
  10. Transparency. Overarching all of these principles should be requirements for transparency. This should include publicly releasing medical/epidemiological advice on necessary measures, open-source software in all cases of digital COVID surveillance, initial privacy impact assessments and sunset clause recommendations.

COVID-19 has necessitated the most pervasive surveillance most of us have ever experienced. But such surveillance is really only justifiable as an emergency measure. It must not become a permanent part of state surveillance.



Read more:
Coronavirus: digital contact tracing doesn’t have to sacrifice privacy


The Conversation

Graham Greenleaf, Professor of Law and Information Systems, UNSW and Katharine Kemp, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

COVID has changed policing — but now policing needs to change to respond better to COVID

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Vicki Sentas, UNSW; Leanne Weber, University of Canberra, and Louise Boon-Kuo, University of SydneyWith rolling lockdowns now part of how Australians live in the pandemic age, important questions arise about corresponding changes in policing. Constantly changing public health orders bring not only confusion but expansive police authority to enforce many new criminal offences.

On one view, using the police to protect public health by stopping the spread of the virus appears a logical step. But, in practice, do public health objectives always take precedence over existing enforcement approaches?

The recent deployment of 100 additional officers and mounted police to south-west Sydney call to mind the same concerns expressed by the Victorian Ombudsman that the policing and lockdown of public housing tower blocks in 2020 were partly informed by “incorrect and potentially stereotypical assumptions” about residents.

Reports of unfair police actions revise age-old questions about the role and function of the police in enforcing social inequalities and its punitive effects.



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How is COVID being policed?

Fines have been a key method of policing COVID restrictions. Yet our exploratory research suggests fines are merely one way in which police are using their powers during the pandemic.

Select data we obtained from New South Wales Police indicate that from March 15 to June 15 2020, the most common police action was to search those stopped. Although the public health relevance of conducting a search is unclear, police searched 45% of all people stopped for a COVID-related incident.

We also know COVID policing has affected some communities more than others. In Victoria, a parliamentary inquiry found people in lower socioeconomic areas were twice as likely to be fined as those in higher socioeconomic areas.

Our research in NSW found Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples comprised 9% of the stop incidents in which Indigenous or non-Indigenous status was recorded. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were even more disproportionately subject to coercive police powers following a stop, making up 15% of arrests and 10% of people searched.

Whatever the precise level of over-representation, these findings are consistent with the broader, long-standing experience of the over-policing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Considering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples comprise around 3% of the population, these data alone show disproportionate use of search and arrest powers. They also support concerns that the pandemic has intensified the policing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

COVID policing appears to rely on longstanding criminalisation strategies at odds with public health. An old-school public order approach of stop and search, and fines, undermines public health because of the social harms of criminal justice contact.

Most obviously, increased police contact through personal searches could increase the risk of transmission. And, as we explain elsewhere, questions remain about their lawful basis.

Police have recently been deployed to patrol parts of western Sydney under lockdown.
Mick Tsikas/AAP

How could COVID be policed?

The social and economic costs of the pandemic have greater impacts on precarious and low-wage workers and marginalised people. It is even more critical that policing does not amplify those inequalities by prioritising punishment over keeping people safe.

The Australian approach isn’t the only possibility. Heavy reliance on enforcement contrasts, for example, with the United Kingdom, where the policing of COVID-19 measures early in the pandemic was independently assessed by policing experts as “taking place at the margins”. These experts pointed out that people are more likely to comply with rules where they regard them as morally right and reflecting social norms, rather than because they fear fines and other sanctions.

Instead of prosecuting individuals for non-compliance with frequently changing laws, a better approach would be to provide financial assistance and accessible information, particularly for disadvantaged groups.



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Pandemic policing needs to be done with the public’s trust, not confusion

A community-focused, public health approach would move away from coercive policing and emphasise co-developed community resources on COVID restrictions and their purpose.

A small group of NSW Police officers recently joined forces with a community organisation to hand out free masks and hand sanitiser to residents in hard-hit areas of western Sydney. But this has not been a system-wide approach, and is unlikely to erase the memory of mounted police patrols enforcing the lockdown in the same area.

It is too early to say what the lasting changes in policing may be. Will additional powers granted to police persist beyond the emergency in some other form? Will states continue to revert to border control to protect against future, non-biological risks? Will technology-driven population surveillance become more prominent?

This all remains to be seen. But it is certain that mass vaccination would shrink the need for state policing of COVID altogether.The Conversation

Vicki Sentas, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Law, UNSW; Leanne Weber, Professor of Criminology, University of Canberra, and Louise Boon-Kuo, Senior Lecturer, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Melbourne is using pop-up police spy stations to find people breaking COVID rules – what does the law say?

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Rick Sarre, University of South Australia

CCTV cameras mounted on vans have recently been seen in public parks around Melbourne, ostensibly to nab anyone breaking lockdown rules. They are part of a joint initiative between several Melbourne councils, Victoria Police and the Commonwealth government.

Coming on the back of Victorian police arresting and charging a number of people for inciting others to break bans on public gatherings by protesting in the streets, there is likely to be widespread resentment to the presence of these mobile surveillance units.

Many people are already claiming the Victorian government has once again over-stepped the mark in its aggressive approach to suppressing COVID-19.

These mobile units are not new, though. They were introduced in 2018 to help combat crime. They are not cheap, either. The cost to purchase and operate four of the units has been estimated at $3.6 million.

But what are the laws around public surveillance of people going about their daily business or recreational activities outdoors?

Let me tackle this question by posing four related questions:

  • are the cameras legal?

  • are such surveillance tools effective?

  • are these measures acceptable in a vibrant democracy?

  • what protections should be put in place?



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Are the cameras legal?

It needs to be stated at the outset the Constitution does not include any specific rights related to privacy. And the High Court suggested two decades ago that privacy was unlikely to be protected under common law.

The Victorian Charter of Human Rights, however, contains a provision that states people have the right not to have their

privacy unlawfully or arbitrarily interfered with.

But a lawfully installed camera designed to deter offending would not, on its face, defy the terms of the charter.

International law, too, provides some privacy protections. In 1991, Australia signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states

no one should be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy.

However, Australian parliaments have introduced few laws to enshrine these protections. The legislation that has been enacted has largely been limited to curtailing the use of privately monitored listening and surveillance devices and preventing governments and big business from sharing citizens’ private information.

The Australian Law Reform Commission has issued clarion calls to extend these protections in recent years, but these efforts continue to gather dust.



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Lockdown returns: how far can coronavirus measures go before they infringe on human rights?

So, it should not be surprising that mobile CCTV cameras driven to and stationed in public places are perfectly legal.

Moreover, so-called “unmanned airborne vehicles” (UAVs), more commonly known as drones, are regularly deployed by police for surveillance purposes, too.

Both of these surveillance tools are backed by regulatory force at all three levels of government.

Police have been patrolling parks for weeks to ensure compliance with the Stage 4 lockdown regulations.
ERIK ANDERSON/AP

Are these surveillance tools effective?

Proponents of these mobile surveillance units argue the perceived risks to privacy and heavy investment are worth it, given the social disorder they prevent and the help they provide police in solving crimes.

However, there is much research now that casts doubt on this assumption.

In one study in 2009, for instance, CCTV cameras were only found to reduce crime by 16% overall (and by only 7% in city and town centres and public housing communities).

The efficacy of these surveillance units in a health emergency has yet to be proven. The cameras would seem to be most useful in providing police with information regarding who is using the parks, and perhaps providing something of a deterrent to those who might consider breaching lockdown restrictions, but not much more.

Are these measures acceptable?

Yes and no. On the one hand, there is no doubt people want the coronavirus restrictions to end. And if these units deter people from breaking lockdown rules, and this, in turn, helps bring the new case numbers down more quickly, people may accept the intrusion in their lives.

On the other hand, some are understandably alarmed at the increasing use of surveillance tools by authorities — dubbed “uberveillance” by sociologists.



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Pandemic policing needs to be done with the public’s trust, not confusion

Even advocates for civil liberties appear ambivalent about the curtailment of some basic rights during the pandemic.

Liberty Victoria President Julian Burnside, who has been a fierce defender of privacy rights, surprised many by telling The Age,

It all sounds pretty sensible to me. … We are in a war against the coronavirus, and when you’re in a war with anything, restrictions on your otherwise normal liberties are justifiable.

Liberty Victoria quickly sought to distance itself from the comments.

What protections should be put in place?

There is no doubt parliaments are the most appropriate bodies to determine the extent to which individuals can be subjected to lawful public surveillance.

Indeed, former High Court judge Michael Kirby argues the legislative arm of government needs to step up to the task of scrutinising emergency powers with more vigour.

Otherwise it simply becomes a tame servant of the executive, which is a common weakness of parliamentary democracies of the Westminster system.

But parliaments will only respond if citizens demand this of them, and there are very few signs of that at the moment.

In the meantime, there are a number of legal tweaks that should be undertaken to ensure the government’s spying on the public domain is appropriately measured:

  1. we need to ensure the images and other data that are collected by surveillance units are stored appropriately and discarded quickly when no longer needed

  2. we need to be able to hold police and other surveillance operators to account for any excesses in the manner in which images are gathered and shared

  3. there needs to be a new legal remedy in the event there is a serious invasion of privacy by the inappropriate use or disclosure of images collected by surveillance devices.

True, we have the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner constantly reminding governments of the concerns associated with threats to privacy.

But without civic push-back, little will change. Parliamentarians are unlikely to limit the powers of the executive to allow mobile surveillance units to be parked in public places unless it becomes politically unpopular. One can but wonder when this tipping point may be reached.The Conversation

Rick Sarre, Emeritus Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Explainer: why police will be crucial players in the battle against coronavirus

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AAP/Dean Lewins

Terry Goldsworthy, Bond University and Robyn Lincoln, Bond University

As coronavirus continues to affect all aspects of life, law enforcement agencies are playing a more pivotal role in enforcing new health and social regulations while ensuring society continues to function in a civil manner.

So why is law enforcement important in our battle against COVID-19, and what role will it play?

Police help contain the virus

Several Australian police services have set up dedicated resources to assist in containing the virus. These include major incident rooms and operations and specific new taskforces.

Victoria has established a 500-strong contingent to compel the closure of all but essential services. As well as the shutdown measures, police and authorised officers will be enforcing mandatory self-isolation periods for anyone entering Victoria from overseas. Under Victoria’s state of emergency, breaking quarantine conditions carries fines of up to A$20,000 for individuals and nearly A$100,000 for businesses.

NSW police can impose on-the-spot fines to enforce social distancing.

In New South Wales, police have been required to limit large gatherings in public and restrict access to beaches, removing swimmers and surfers where necessary.

The state government this week granted police enhanced powers to enforce public health orders relating to COVID-19. This includes the power to arrest people breaching their quarantine. Police will be able to compel suspected COVID-19 cases to remain in isolation. The bill will:

allow a police officer to arrest a person who the officer reasonably suspects of contravening a public health order in relation to COVID-19 and returning the person to their usual place of residence or their place of detention.

NSW Police at Bondi Pavilion after state officials closed the beach.
MATRIXPICTURES.COM.AU

In conducting similar checks, Victoria Police discovered seven people were not self-isolating as required during spot checks this week.

Such enforcement activity brings with it a unique set of problems. Reports this week indicated up to 200 Victorian police staff are already in quarantine. Concerns were raised about a lack of protective equipment for officers. The powerful Police Association wants a state of disaster declared to free up police to act with greater efficiency and additional powers.



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In Queensland, police recruits have been fast-tracked through the academy to provide extra personnel. In addition, Operation Sierra Linnet was launched, a multi-agency taskforce that will ensure compliance with restrictions for all pubs, registered and licensed clubs, gyms, indoor sporting venues, casinos and night clubs.

From midnight Wednesday this week Queensland police have been harnessing their random roadside breath-testing skills to curtail non-approved border crossings.

What impact might coronavirus have on crime?

While police are being asked to extend their range of duties into our everyday activities, in other areas they are pulling back from traditional roles. For example, Queensland police have stopped static random breath test sites because of coronavirus fears.

It is probable police will respond to essential call-outs only, as has happened in some other countries. Even then response times might be longer than before.

We should not be concerned that fewer uniformed police will have an impact on public safety – it is common for police to exercise largely peacekeeping functions. This was highlighted in the Kansas City Patrol Experiment in the 1970s, which found formal police patrols did not impact on crime rates or community fear of crime.

As a consequence of the virus, we have seen criminal elements attempt to take advantage of emerging markets. In the UK, police arrested men who had allegedly stolen toilet paper and hand wash. In Sydney, two men threatened staff with a knife while trying to steal toilet paper.

The strain on our social cohesion is showing, with fights erupting between shoppers as they try to obtain items now in short supply.

In response, the prime minister this week announced his government was creating a new offence to target people hoarding essential goods in an effort to prevent price gouging and exports of products needed to reduce the spread of coronavirus. He said:

These measures will help prevent individuals purchasing goods including face masks, hand sanitiser and vital medicines and either reselling them at significant mark-ups or exporting them overseas in bulk, which prevents these goods from reaching people who need them in Australia.

It isn’t only New York that has two-hour wait queues for firearms and ammunition – consumers are stocking up on ammunition here as well.

What does the future hold?

Trying to predict crime transformations due to coronavirus is difficult. It is likely there will be surges in some crime categories and reductions in others due to conditions created by the crisis.

“Break and enter” offences in private dwellings will probably decline under a widespread lockdown that keeps people in their homes. Alcohol-fuelled violence in public spaces is certain to drop significantly with the closures of pubs, clubs, casinos and restaurants. However, domestic violence incidents are predicted to rise over time, with interpersonal tensions in restricted living arrangements.



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Given the uncertainty and the ever-changing situation facing us all, policing needs to be agile and flexible in its response to the needs of society and the demands of governments.

Our law enforcement agencies will perform a critical role in combating the virus and ensuring public safety.The Conversation

Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminology, Bond University and Robyn Lincoln, Assistant Professor, Criminology, Bond University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.