Karen Dearne reports:
Political sensitivity on business concerns has led a Senate inquiry to withhold parts of an Australian Privacy Foundation submission.
Paragraphs referring to Microsoft’s ActiveX script, Google’s business model, Facebook, online copyright, surveillance risks under the National Broadband Network and flaws in the draft privacy reform bill have all been removed from the APF’s supplementary submission.
The secretary of the Senate’s standing committee on communications said the full contents would be released once parties affected by “potentially adverse remarks” had been given a right of reply. “The complete document will be published by the end of this week, along with any responses we receive,” he said.
The committee chairwoman, South Australian Liberal Senator Mary Jo Fisher, offered APF chairman Roger Clarke an opportunity to correct any “boo-boos” or “fix up” any “errors” when he appeared at a public hearing in Melbourne earlier this month, but he declined to do so.
Read more in The Australian.