Associate Professor Katharine Kemp led two conversations – with the NSW Privacy Commissioner and UNSW’s Johanna Hetherington – discussing privacy and AI.
Last week Privacy Awareness Week highlighted the importance of privacy and raised awareness for public sector agencies about how to protect personal information of the people we serve. The theme for this year's campaign was ‘Privacy – it's everyone’s business’.
Associate Professor Katharine Kemp, an expert in privacy law from UNSW Law & Justice, believes privacy is “like clean air or public interest journalism. Privacy is important for our society, even if you don’t worry about it personally. It’s foundational to democracy and human development.”
On Tuesday 17 June, A/Prof. Kemp joined NSW Privacy Commissioner Sonia Minutillo for a conversation about ‘Everyone’s privacy in the world of AI’ where she focused on the evolving relationship between AI and privacy, and the challenges around how personal data is collected, used and safeguarded.
A/Prof. Kemp also met with Johanna Hetherington from UNSW Legal & Compliance to answer some questions and shed light on the campaign slogan.
During this interview, A/Prof. Kemp urged us to move beyond outdated notions of privacy, such as locked drawers and filing cabinets.
“When it comes to privacy protections, we are only as strong as our weakest link. We can put ourselves and others at risk if even one person has decided that they're going to stick their password up on their computer monitor, they make the mistake of leaving an important file in the back seat of an Uber or if they just simply don't understand that the information they're dealing with is personal.
“We need to think about what happens if this data is published, accessed or used in ways we never intended,” she said.
A/Prof. Kemp challenges institutions to go beyond legal compliance.
“We shouldn’t ask, ‘what can we get away with?’ We should ask, ‘how do we protect the human right to privacy, which is vital to our dignity and autonomy? How do we do that fairly?’”.
A/Prof. Kemp’s work with consumer organisations reveals the emotional toll of privacy breaches and exemplifies the importance of privacy governance.
“When a breach occurs, people feel violated, anxious and helpless because this isn’t just about data, it’s about people’s lives,” she said, citing examples from the Medibank and Optus breaches.
Two of the key insights from A/Prof. Kemp’s conversation with Johanna Hetherington are: privacy is not dead and it’s not a zero-sum game.
“We can still make choices. We can still resist organisations that trample human dignity. We also don’t have to choose between privacy and progress. With thoughtful design, we can have both,” she said.
Her parting message to UNSW staff is that “privacy affects real people and protecting it is part of everything we do.”
What practical steps can you take?
A/Prof. Kemp offers some privacy protection fundamentals:
- Ask early: is this personal information? Do we really need it?
- Minimise risk: can we use non-personal or de-identified data instead?
- Control access: who needs to see this data and for how long?
- Avoid purpose creep: do new uses fit with the individual’s’ expectations and interests?
- Secure it: how are we protecting it from misuse or breach? When should we delete it?
Visit the Information Governance Hub for more guidance.
Pictured: Johanna Hetherington, Lawyer - Privacy, Legal & Compliance (interviewer) and Dr Katharine Kemp, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney
Artist credit: UNSW Art Collection piece Seven Sisters by artist Sylvia Kanytjupai Ken
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