Tough new EU privacy regulations could lead to better protections in Australia

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation comes into force on May 25.
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Vincent Mitchell, University of Sydney

Major personal data breaches, such as those that occurred recently at the Commonwealth Bank, Cambridge Analytica and Yahoo, have taught us how vulnerable our privacy is.

Like the cigarette and alcohol markets, it took a long time to prove that poorly regulated data collection can do us harm. And as with passive smoking, we now know that data trading can harm those around us as well as ourselves.

Regulators in the European Union are cracking down on the problem with the introduction the new strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from May 25. The hope is that the new rules will shift the balance of power in the market for data away from companies and back to the owners of that data.

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The GDPR applies to companies who trade in the EU or process the data of people in the EU. This includes some of Australia’s biggest companies, such as the Commonwealth Bank and Bunnings Warehouse. Since companies that don’t operate in the EU or process the data of people in the EU aren’t required to comply, Australian consumers could soon be facing a two-tier system of privacy protections.

That isn’t all bad news. By choosing to deal with companies with better data protection policies, Australian consumers can create pressure for change in how personal data is handled across the board.

How the GDPR empowers consumers

The GDPR makes it clearer what companies should be doing to protect personal data and empowers consumers like never before.

When dealing with companies operating in the EU, you will now have the right to:

1. access your own data and any derived or inferred data

2. rectify errors and challenge decisions based on it, including to object to direct marketing

3. be forgotten and erased in most situations

4. move your data more easily, such as when changing insurance companies or banks

5. object to certain types of data processing and challenge significant decisions based purely on profiling, such as for medical insurance or loans

6. compensation.

This final right will lead to another profound improvement in regulation of the market for personal data.

Consumers as a regulating force

As a result of these new rights and powers, consumers themselves can help regulate company behaviour by monitoring how well they comply with GDPR.

In addition to complaining to authorities, such as the Information Commissioner, when consumers encounter breaches they can complain directly to the company, share stories online and alert fellow users.

This can be powerful – especially when whistleblowers actually work in the industry, as was the case with Cambridge Analytica’s Christopher Wylie.

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Companies that don’t protect people’s personal data will face fines from the regulator of up to 4% of global turnover, or €20 million. In addition, they could be required to pay compensation directly to consumers who have asked investigating authorities to claim on their behalf.

This potentially means that all those millions of EU citizens who were caught up in the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal could, in the future, be able to sue Facebook.

From the viewpoint of empowering and motivating consumers to monitor what companies do with their data, this is a momentous change.

A shift in our expectations of data privacy

The way things currently stand, there is an imbalance in the personal data market. Companies take all the profit from our personal data, yet we pay the price as individuals, or as a society, for privacy breaches.

But as a result of GDPR, we are likely to see expectations of how companies should act begin to shift. This will create pressure for change.

You’ve probably already been sent notifications from companies asking you to re-consent to their privacy policies. This is because GDPR expects consent to be more explicit and active – default settings and pre-checked boxes are considered inadequate.

Consumers should also expect companies to make it just as easy to withdraw consent as it is to give it.

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Unlike New Zealand, which has strong privacy laws, personal data protections in Australia – and the massive data markets of BRIC countries – are not considered “adequate”, and fall below EU standards.

Consumers should be wary of vested interest arguments, such as Facebook’s claim that it just wants to connect people. To use an analogy, that’s comparable to an alcohol manufacturer saying it just wants people to have a good time, without highlighting the potential risks of alcohol use.

If you want these greater rights and protections, now is the perfect time to lobby your Members of Parliament and demand the best available protection from all the companies you deal with.

Vincent Mitchell, Professor of Marketing, University of Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Without proper protections, same-sex marriage will discriminate against conscientious objectors

If marriage is to be redefined, substantial protections should be provided for conscientious objectors.
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Greg Walsh, University of Notre Dame Australia

Many politicians have confidently claimed that the introduction of same-sex marriage does not have the potential to violate religious liberty or the rights of conscientious objectors.

This is clearly false considering the situation overseas and in Australia. If Australia is to redefine marriage, substantial protections should be provided for conscientious objectors.

Why do we need protections?

In countries where same-sex marriage is legal, people who have opposed it have been fired or forced to resign from their jobs.

Business owners such as florists, bakers and photographers have been forced to compromise their beliefs and provide their services or face legal sanctions. In one US case, this resulted in a $135,000 fine.

Religious organisations that have refused to allow their facilities to be used for same-sex marriages have been denied government benefits such as tax exemptions. Universities with more traditional positions on marriage and sexuality have been denied accreditation. Advocacy groups promoting the view that marriage is only between a man and a woman have lost their charitable status.

In rare situations, those who have refused to facilitate same-sex marriages have been imprisoned.

In Australia, where same-sex marriage has not been introduced, there are already many examples of individuals suffering from discrimination, intimidation, boycotts and legal action.

Hobart’s Catholic Archbishop Julian Porteous was required to appear before Tasmania’s anti-discrimination commissioner after distributing a letter defending traditional marriage. This followed a complaint that it violated anti-vilification laws. The complaint was withdrawn, but only after a substantial amount of time and money had been expended on the proceedings.

Opponents of the redefinition of marriage have also been forced to cancel hotel bookings for conferences and been refused printing services for books promoting traditional marriage.

People and businesses have also experienced intimidation, boycotts and even death threats. This has included university academics, corporate employees, businesses, concerned mothers, and lobby groups.

Governments have also been willing to donate to proponents of same-sex marriage and provide other benefits (such as flying rainbow flags) while denying any such support for opponents of change. This is despite 40% of the population supporting traditional marriage.

Importantly, supporters of change do not want to introduce same-sex marriage, but two-person marriage. This new definition will raise additional challenges for conscientious objectors.

Some of the issues relating to gender identity that have already arisen overseas include parents prevented from removing their children from programs encouraging students to consider their gender identity, religious schools threatened with closure if they do not address issues of sexuality and gender identity in a government-approved manner, and the possibility of parents losing custody of their children if they refuse to affirm their child’s chosen gender identity.

These are just a few examples that could be used to demonstrate the problems that may arise when marriage is redefined – especially when it has been redefined without providing substantial protections for conscientious objectors.

How to provide substantial protections

The importance of providing conscience protections is affirmed not just by opponents of change but also by advocates for same-sex marriage such as US law professor Douglas Laycock and Liberal MP Tim Wilson.

Their support indicates that conscience protections should not be seen as excusing bigotry. Rather, they are a legitimate means of best promoting everyone’s welfare.

These protections are particularly appropriate considering that a failure to adequately protect conscientious objectors violates the right to equality. This is the very right that advocates of change assert to be of such importance to the issue of marriage equality (despite international human rights law declaring that the right is not violated by a country deciding against introducing same-sex marriage).

The right to equality under international human rights law clearly protects attributes such as religion and political opinion. Examples include Articles 2 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

A failure to protect conscientious objectors can be regarded as a violation of their right to equality. This is because it subjects them to discrimination based on their religion or political opinion.

The merits of providing such protections can also be supported on many other grounds. These include conscience rights, religious liberty, parental rights, privacy, freedom of association, the rights of children, and freedom of speech.

To provide effective protection to conscientious objectors, legislation redefining marriage should:

• permit individuals, companies and religious bodies to decline to facilitate a same-sex marriage or related celebration;

• protect the freedom of individuals to express their views about marriage;

• ensure government action does not inappropriately undermine parental duties; and

• prohibit discrimination by government bodies, companies and individuals against conscientious objectors.

Despite the importance of providing such protections, the failure of so many politicians to recognise that redefining marriage will cause Australians to suffer discrimination does not inspire confidence that these protections will be provided. If politicians won’t even recognise the potential for harm despite overwhelming evidence it is very unlikely that they will strongly advocate for comprehensive protections for conscientious objectors.

The probability of this outcome is indicated by the bills proposed this year and previously. These provided very limited protections for religious ministers, civil celebrants and religious organisations.

The failure of federal politicians to take seriously the legitimate concerns that people have about the consequences of changing our marriage laws may be one of the reasons why so many will be voting “no” at the upcoming postal ballot.

Greg Walsh, Senior Lecturer, School of Law, University of Notre Dame Australia

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Lao Officials Visit Expelled Christians, Give Assurances

Officials led by provincial governor explain law providing for right to believe.

DUBLIN, March 19 (CDN) — Officials in Laos’ Saravan Province yesterday visited 48 Christians expelled from Katin village and assured them that they had the legal right to embrace the faith of their choice, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF).

During a 30-minute visit the delegation, led by provincial Gov. Khamboon Duangpanya, read out June 2002’s Decree 92 on the Management and Protections of Religious Activity in Laos and explained its religious freedom provisions to the group, assuring them that they could freely believe in Christianity “if their faith was genuine.”

HRWLRF reported that the officials also said the Christians had the right to live anywhere in the district. Ta-Oyl district officials had expelled the Christians from Katin village at gunpoint on Jan. 18 when they refused to give up their faith. Having lost access to their homes, fields and livestock, the Christians then built temporary shelters at the edge of the jungle, about six kilometers (nearly four miles) away from the village.

The district head, identified only as Bounma, on Monday (March 15) summoned seven of the believers to his office and declared that he would not tolerate the existence of Christianity in areas under his control. The group must either recant their faith or move elsewhere, he’d said.

Shortly afterwards an anonymous source told the Christians that the chiefs of Katin and neighboring Ta Loong village planned to burn down their temporary shelters within 48 hours. (See “Lao Officials Threaten to Burn Shelters of Expelled Christians,” March 16.)

Also present at yesterday’s meeting were three other provincial officials, the deputy-head of Ta-Oyl district, identified only as Khammun, and the head of religious affairs in Ta-Oyl, identified only as Bounthoun, HRWLRF reported. During the brief meeting, the Christians asked Gov. Duangpanya if they had the right to live in Katin or other villages in the district.

He responded that as Lao citizens, the Christians could live wherever they chose. In regard to their current location, however, Khammun said he would have to “consult with the proper authorities” before granting the Christians permission to remain on land owned by neighboring Ta Loong village.

After delegating this responsibility to Khammun, Gov. Duangpanya assured the Christians that they could contact him if they needed further help, according to HRWLRF.

According to the Lao Law on Family Registration, when a citizen moves from one village to another for less than a year, he or she must request permission for “temporary changing of residence” from the original village. The paperwork is then turned over to authorities in the new village and reviewed after six months. After a year, citizens must repeat the process to apply for permanent residence in their new location.

Until now provincial officials have largely ignored the plight of Katin Christians, failing to intervene last July when villagers seized a Christian identified only as Pew and poured rice wine down his throat, killing him by asphyxiation. Village officials later fined Pew’s family for erecting a cross on his grave, and then detained 80 Christians in a school compound, denying them food and pressuring them to renounce their faith.

The heads of 13 families signed documents renouncing Christianity in order to protect their children; most of them, however, have since resumed attendance at worship meetings.

Provincial officials did call a meeting in September 2008 asking Katin authorities and residents to respect the religious laws of the nation, but four days later village officials seized and slaughtered a buffalo owned by a villager who refused to give up his faith.

A communist country, Laos is 1.5 percent Christian and 67 percent Buddhist, with the remainder unspecified. Article 6 and Article 30 of the Lao Constitution guarantee the right of Christians and other religious minorities to practice the religion of their choice without discrimination or penalty.

Report from Compass Direct News 

Court Impedes Effort to Rescue Kidnapped Girl in Bangladesh

Muslim men abduct Christian eighth-grader, force her to convert and marry.

DHAKA, Bangladesh, November 3 (CDN) — A bail order in Bangladesh has impeded police from rescuing a young Christian girl who was abducted and forced to convert to Islam and marry one of her kidnappers, according to police.

Four Muslim men abducted eighth-grade student Silvia Merry Sarker on July 30 as she made her way home from school in west Sujankathi village, under Agoiljhara police jurisdiction, in Barisal district in southern Bangladesh, according to her father, Julian Sarker.

Sarker filed a case under the Women and Children Repression Act against Al-Amin Faria, 24, Shamim Faria, 22, Sahadat Faria, 20, and Sattar Faria, 50.

“My daughter was abducted by Faria with the help of his cousins and other relatives,” said Sarker.

Sarker filed a First Information Report (FIR) charging that the men abducted his daughter initially to “indulge Al-Amin Faria’s evil desire.” Later she was forced to convert to Islam and marry Al-Amin Faria, which Sarker said was part of an attempt to take over his land and property.

Local police inspector Ashok Kumar Nandi told Compass that police were continuing efforts to arrest the kidnappers but had yet to find them, as the unusually early bail order had blocked their efforts.

“There are four names as prime suspects in the case,” Nandi said. “We arrested three of them, but the court released them on bail. If the court had given them to us on remand, we might have found the girl, or at least we would get much information to rescue the girl.”

Generally suspects in cases under the Women and Children Repression Act are not granted bail so early for the sake of investigations, Nandi said.

“We do not know why they were released on bail,” he said. “Those released persons are moving freely in the village. We cannot arrest them again without an order.”

Attorney Rabindra Ghosh, president of Bangladesh Minority Watch and an activist for Dutch human rights organization Global Human Rights Defense, told Compass that the granting of bail to the suspects also poses threats to the victim’s family.

“They are threatening the victim’s family to withdraw the case,” said Ghosh. “Release of the abductors on bail so early is a travesty – the abductors got impunity due to the early bail order. For the sake of the girl’s rescue, the court could have sent the arrestees to police on remand to find more information about their hideout.”

Gnosh concurred that an accused person under the Women and Children Repression Act case does not get bail so early without first getting necessary information from them.

False Document

A few days after the kidnapping, Sarker said, the abductors provided Nimchandra Bepari, a Hindu neighbor, an affidavit claiming that Sarker’s daughter was 19 years old. Bepari gave the affidavit to the local police inspector. The kidnappers also contacted sub-district chairman Mortuza Khan.

“My daughter is 13 years old, but the abductors made an affidavit of her age showing 19 years old,” Sarker said.

The headmaster of Agoiljhara Shrimoti Matrimangal Girls High School, where the girl is a student, issued a certificate denoting that Silvia Merry Sarker is even younger than 13 – born on Dec. 24, 1997, which would mean she is not yet 12 years old.

The fabricated affidavit provided by the kidnappers states that she accepted Islam and has married, said Sarker.

“I am shocked how a minor girl is shown as an adult in the affidavit,” Ghosh said. “It is illegal, and there should be proper action against this kind of illegal activity.”

Al-Amin Faria had tried to get the girl’s two older sisters to marry him, but their early marriages saved them from falling prey to him, Sarker said.

“I married off my two elder daughters at an early age immediately after finishing their schooling,” said Sarker.

Before they married, Sarker said he felt helpless to keep Faria and his family from accosting and harassing his other daughters.

“I could not take any legal action against them since we are the only Christian family here,” he said. “I tolerated everything. I did not inform it to police or they would get infuriated.”

When Faria “targeted” his second daughter for marriage, Sarker informed the headmaster of the school and its managing committee, and they warned the Muslim not to disturb the family, Sarker said. Nevertheless, he said, he felt he couldn’t send his older daughters to school because he feared Faria would harm them.

“The relation of us with those Muslim neighbors is ‘predator-and-prey,’” he said. “I saved my other family members from his lechery, but I could not save my youngest daughter.”

Sarker said he felt alone and helpless as a Christian minority but that he doesn’t understand how the entire justice system also can be so helpless.

“Why and how can the court, law enforcement agencies, police, administration, society and the country be helpless against him? Why can’t they rescue my daughter?” he said.

Dilip Gabriel Bepari, an activist for Bangladesh Minority Watch, told Compass that the group had informed national and international officials in seeking help to find the girl.

“We informed it to various ministers, political leaders and police high officials,” Bepari said. “We also informed it to the Vatican ambassador in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, the girl is still missing.”

Archbishop Paulinus Costa of Bangladesh said the Catholic Church’s impassioned plea to the government is to rescue her as soon as possible and bring the kidnappers to justice.

“It is unfortunate that the girl is not rescued yet in three months,” Costa said. “There must be negligence and indifference to the Christians from the government, otherwise the girl would be rescued.”

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) this year removed Bangladesh from its “Watch List” of countries requiring close monitoring of religious freedom violations, but it urged the new Awami League administration to strengthen protections for all Bangladeshis.

USCIRF also indicates that it hopes the government of Bangladesh will investigate and prosecute perpetrators of violent acts against members of minority religious communities.

Report from Compass Direct News 

VIETNAM: ALLEGED MURDERER OF CHRISTIAN STRIKES AGAIN

Local authorities complicit or turn blind eye to assaults on Christians.

LOS ANGELES, May 11 (Compass Direct News) – A Hmong man in Vietnam’s Northwest Mountainous Region who murdered his mother in February because she had become a Christian has assaulted another Christian, leaving him critically wounded, according to area Christian sources.

Lao Lia Po on April 25 allegedly attacked Koua Lo of Meo Vac district, Ha Giang Province because he had become a Christian, according to a local church leader. Koua sustained severe head injuries; according to witnesses, his head was split open in two places with parts of his brain visible.

Koua was taken to a hospital, but after three days doctors said they could do nothing more for him and sent him home. As his injuries were life-threatening, those close to Koua did not expect him to recover.

The alleged attacker, Lao, is still at large and has not been charged. The assault took place in Sung Can Village, Sung Tra Commune, Meo Vac district, Ha Giang Province.

In the same area two years ago, a 74-year-old woman became the first Christian in the village. Today there are about 100 families who follow Christ, but the cost has been high. Stories of harassment and abuse of Christians in Meo Vac district have circulated for several months, with local Christians saying government officials are either complicit or look the other way.

On Feb. 3, local Christians said, Lao murdered his mother in a similarly brutal fashion, smashing her head until she died. Police only held him overnight before releasing him without charge. The day he was released, local sources said, he again threatened Christians with death.

A Vietnamese pastor petitioned the government to investigate – with no result. Another leader informed U.S. diplomats of the details. Some Vietnamese Christians have complained to Vietnam diplomatic missions abroad, all to no avail.

Advocates of religious freedom in Vietnam say such impunity puts a serious blot on Vietnam’s slowly improving religious liberty record.

Following heavy international scrutiny of Vietnam’s oppression of religion in general and Protestantism in particular, Vietnam promulgated new religion legislation in 2004 and 2005. To date this has led to the legal recognition of six church/denominational organizations, raising the total to eight out of about 70. Additionally, a few hundred of Vietnam’s thousands of house church congregations have been given interim permission to carry on religious activities, and large-scale government campaigns to force ethnic minority Christians to recant their faith have ceased.

High hopes for improvement following the new religion legislation led the U.S. Department of State to take Vietnam off its blacklist of the worst violators of religious freedom in late 2006, which enabled the U.S. government to endorse Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organization. And Christian support organization Open Doors this year dropped Vietnam to No. 23 on its World Watch List ranking of religion persecutors. In eight of the last 12 years, Vietnam had been placed among the organization’s top 10 worst religious persecutors.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), however, found exceptions to progress so widespread that it again recommended naming Vietnam a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) this year. The recommendation by USCIRF, responsible for monitoring state department compliance with the U.S. 1998 Law on International Religious Freedom, was announced on May 1.

The commission’s report recognizes progress but notes, “There continue to be far too many serious abuses and restrictions of religious freedom in the country. Individuals continue to be imprisoned or detained for reasons related to their religious activity or religious freedom advocacy; police and government officials are not held fully accountable for abuses; independent religious activity remains illegal; and legal protections for government-approved religious organizations are both vague and subject to arbitrary or discriminatory interpretations based on political factors.”

Given the uneven pace of religious freedom progress after removing Vietnam from the list of CPCs, continued detention of prisoners of conscience, and an overall deteriorating human rights situation, USCIRF recommended that Vietnam be re-designated as a CPC.

In Tra Vinh Province in the Mekong Delta Region of southern Vietnam, another Christian was murdered on April 5. Thugs ambushed Thach Thanh No, described as a young and enthusiastic church elder, on his way home from Sunday worship, according to local Christian sources. His family was unable to find him quickly, and he died from his injuries as he was transported to a hospital.

The congregation in Ngoc Bien Commune to which he belonged has long been harassed and threatened by local thugs supported by militant Buddhists, according to area Christians, who emphasized that authorities have done nothing to intervene.

Indeed, in Thach’s case, rather than prosecute the killers, the Ministry of Public Security’s World Security newspaper published an article on April 24 – concocted without any factual basis, according to area Christians – which portrayed him as dying from crashing his motorbike while drunk. His motorbike, however, was found entirely unmarked without any signs of a crash, and his body showed clear signs of a vicious beating, according to area Christians.

“In one case the law winks at the murder of a Christian and does nothing to punish the murderer – in another, authorities actively work to cover up a murder with elaborate lies,” said one long-time advocate for religious freedom in Vietnam. “Such behavior on the part of authorities convinces many Vietnamese Christians that their country’s top officials are still not sincere about improving religious freedom for all.”

Report from Compass Direct News

ORDINANCE DESIGNED TO ADVANCE GAY ‘RIGHTS’ OVERTURNED BY VOTERS

Voters in the town of Hamtramck, Michigan have overturned an ordinance which would have given legal protections to homosexual behavior, expression and attire, reports Catholic News Agency. The regulations could also have forced businesses to permit men who perceive themselves as women to use women’s restrooms.

Any attempts to prevent such activity, according to the Thomas More Law Center, would have subjected violators to investigations, criminal prosecution, civil litigation, and fines of up to five hundred dollars a day.

The proposal, labeled as a “human rights” ordinance, was defeated 2,903 votes to 2,333.

Father Andrew Wesley, the administrator of St. Ladislaus Parish in Hamtramck and one of the leaders in the fight against the ordinance, wrote a letter published last week in Hamtramck’s The Citizen newspaper supporting overturning the ordinance and denying that the Catholics and Muslims in the town were being intolerant by opposing the measure.

Ordinance opponents knew that “this type of legislation has been used successfully by gay groups in other parts of the country to bring lawsuits against businesses because physical males were refused entrance into women’s restrooms,” Father Wesley’s letter said.

He added that the wording of the ordinance has also been used to bring lawsuits against Catholic adoption agencies which refused to allow same-sex couples to adopt children.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented on the ordinance opponents’ election victory.

“Radical homosexual groups have lost statewide attempts to impose their agenda on the public,” he said. “They are now engaged in a strategy of putting pressure on municipalities –in many cases successfully – to enact draconian provisions like Hamtramck’s. In this case their new strategy failed as the will of the people prevailed.”

Report from the Christian Telegraph