Pulling Together or Pulling Apart: Opportunities for Privacy in a Pandemic?
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The University of Melbourne
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The University of Melbourne Australia
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The University of Melbourne Australia
Abstract
This set of articles in this special issue illustrate a number of ways that the realities of a global pandemic may challenge different perspectives on privacy protection and the appropriate relationship with other rights and responsibilities. They arose from a virtual roundtable, held on 15 June 2020 at Melbourne Law School, under the aegis of the Privacy and Pandemics Information Network. The network was formed as a rapid response to the overwhelming number of privacy issues being raised almost simultaneously by, or as a result of, the various government and private actor attempts to deal with COVID-19 in Australia and around the world.
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Author Biographies
Mark Taylor, PhD is an Associate Professor in Health Law and Regulation at Melbourne Law School and Deputy Director of the research group HeLEX; which focuses on the legal and regulatory frameworks governing new health technologies. His own research is focused on the regulation of personal information with emphasis on health and genetic data. Mark seeks to challenge the idea that privacy interests are necessarily antithetical to the public interest and to develop a concept of privacy that is capable of reconciling individual and community (privacy) interests with a broader (public) interest in access, use and management of personal health information. Mark chaired the national Confidentiality Advisory Group in England and Wales for 5 years. He was policy advisor to the Health Research Authority in England and a member of the drafting group for the OECD Recommendation on Health Data Governance.
Megan Richardson is a Professor and Co-Director of the Centre for Media & Communications Law at the Melbourne Law School, and a Chief Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society (ADM+S). Her principal areas of research are privacy and data protection law, and in particular the ways that these areas of law are shaped by technology and culture. Among other things, she was a member of the Advisory Committee for the Australian Law Reform Commission's Inquiry into Serious Invasions of Privacy in the Digital Era (Report issued 2014). Recent books include The Right to Privacy: Origins and Influence of a Nineteenth-Century Idea (Cambridge, 2017) and Advanced Introduction to Privacy Law (Edward Elgar, 2020).
Stacey Steele is Associate Professor at Melbourne Law School and Associate Director (Japan) at the Asian Law Centre, University of Melbourne. She is also a practicing lawyer specialising in financial services, privacy and data protection.
