What’s good for the Google is not good for the Banks, eh Conroy?

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy was very vocal in Senate estimates this week on the issue of individual right to privacy.

Senator Conroy first targeted Facebook for its changes to privacy rules, giving the social networking site greater freedom to use personal information.

He then went on to lambast Google for obtaining and using details of people’s wireless internet connections during the exhaustive Google maps streetview collection process.

Senator Conroy says Google considers itself to be above government, and that Google considers they are the appropriate people to make the decisions about people’s private data.

Senator Conroy considers this relatively minor breach of privacy to be a grave injustice to the Australian people.

And yet there is a fundamental privacy issue that Senator Conroy has not been so vocal about. An issue that some would argue is far more concerning and threatening to individuals than photo sharing on Facebook or serial numbers of equipment picked up by Google. This privacy issue affects us all and many people still do not know about it.

Australian banks send your most personal, confidential, financial data overseas for processing, and don’t tell you about it.

It’s a secretive as Senator Conroy’s blacklist of websites.

Our recent poll of 2744 Australians showed that 87 per cent agreed there should be a requirement for Australian banks to let people know if their data is being sent to other countries for processing.

Senator Xenophon introduced amendments to a consumer protection bill last year that sought exactly that – requiring banks to get written approval from their customers before sending their data overseas.

It was designed to open up the information channels, allow people the right to choose if they were in fact comfortable with their financial details being used in this way, and ensure that banks were held to account for their largely unscrutinised practice when it comes to giving out customer information.

Senator Conroy, with his articulate defence of personal right to privacy, was nowhere in sight. In fact, the Labor party gave no support to the bill, and indeed show little commitment to bank regulation as a whole.

Perhaps instead of wanting to waste $43 million on an internet filter that won’t protect children, Senator Conroy could pay a little attention to protecting all Australians privacy and financial interests, and encourage his party to commit to better regulation of banks.

It’s time to regulate Australia’s banks. It’s time to get them to sign on to better banking, for all Australians.

Leon Carter, National Secretary, FSU