Cassie White reports:
Party-goers in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley will soon be forced to have their fingerprints scanned before entering some of the precinct’s most popular nightclubs…. between 15 and 20 nightclubs will be implementing it over the next three to six months.
But the move has been slammed as a “PR gimmick” by Terry O’Gorman from the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties.
“For the licensees to say that if a patron gives their fingerprint that will somehow prevent incidents from occurring within a nightclub is just silly and downright illogical,” he said.
“But as well, we have significant concerns about peoples’ privacy, particularly with handing over their fingerprints.
“Even with the police they can only demand them in certain situations when a person is arrested, and even when police get fingerprints under statute they’re under very heavy obligation to ensure privacy safeguards are in place.
“There will be absolutely no privacy safeguards in place to ensure fingerprint materials being collected by pubs and clubs.
“It’s all very well for a relevant licensee to say they’ll be properly stored, but Queensland doesn’t have any privacy laws against which their storage records and procedures can be managed.”
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