The Law Council of Australia (LCA) president Pauline Wright said she is concerned that, while supportive of the government’s intention to roll out a privacy impact statement, there are a number of important policy details already existing that are not yet public.

“While it is likely many of these details would be addressed in a privacy impact statement, it is imperative that a comprehensive privacy impact statement is released publicly, as a matter of urgency, and that Australians are given an opportunity to comment,” she said.

Ms Wright added that until this statement is publicly released, Australians will not be able to make an informed decision about whether to download and use the app.

Privacy impact statement aside, the LCA is generally supportive of the tracing app, if there is a balance between legitimate efforts to protect public health and the right to privacy.

Provided the protections are built into the app, the public should have greater confidence. The LCA has also called for strict limits on the kind of data that can be collected and the used afterwards, as well as how long the data can be stored.

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“The Law Council commends the government announcement of their intention to publicly release a privacy impact assessment for the app before it is rolled out, as well as source code to be utilised by the app. Open source enables the source code to be independently inspected and audited, and this is something we vigorously support,” she said.