The council supports reasonable and proportionate measures for the purposes of facilitating law enforcement and protecting Australia’s national security, LCA president Morry Bailes said, and noted there were many elements within the Bill that achieved this objective.

But he went on to stress that the bill would enable the sharing of biometric and other identification information of a majority of individuals living in Australia.

“Clearly, the sharing of face recognition information would be desirable to facilitate detection of would-be terrorists scoping the site for a potential terrorist attack,” he said.

“But that very same identity-matching capability could also be used for a range of other activities.”

“CCTV footage could be used to detect, investigate or prosecute particular young people who may engage in certain low-level unlawful conduct, for example,” he explained.

The council believes the line between legitimate and proportionate use versus illegitimate and disproportionate use should be better defined and assured by law, Mr Bailes said.

“It should be understood and consistently applied by all relevant governments and their agencies, with clarity and stability of that line supported by appropriate accountability measures that are independently verifiable,” he argued.

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“If that line can creep towards broad social surveillance such as use of this open system to detect and fine jaywalkers or litterers, that line can also creep further to a full social credit-style system of government surveillance of Australian citizens.”

The stability of the line must be maintained through operation of the provisions of the act itself, he concluded, not just through the anticipated good intentions of current and future governments.

The council looks forward to working constructively with the government on this legislation, Mr Bailes said.