Tom Livingstone reports:
Western Australia Police are standing by a decision to access personal data from the state’s COVID-19 contact tracing app in their investigation into the assassination of former Rebels bikie boss, Nick Martin.
WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson told Nine Radio’s 6PR the investigators’ actions were lawful and he “expected officers to do everything possible to bring a murderer to justice”.
The police have only got information twice out of 240 million transactions, and they are exceptional circumstances – it is lawful,” Commissioner Dawson said today.
Read more on 9News.
Assuming for now that it *is* lawful, this is still how you break trust with the public. As the news story reports:
When the SafeWA app was made compulsory in WA in December, Premier Mark McGowan said personal data would only be used by health authorities for the purpose of contact tracing.
But Commissioner Dawson said there was a loophole in the terms and conditions where the information can be used for “lawful reasons”.