Transcript 2019 Solomon Lecture

Office of the Information Commissioner 2019 Solomon Lecture MC - Madonna King Ladies and gentlemen, could I ask you to take your seats and we’ll get underway, thank you. What a terrific and big audience, a wonderful vibe in the room. Well good morning, and on behalf of the Office of the Information Commissioner Queensland and in partnership with the State Library, welcome to our annual Solomon Lecture. Accountability in the Age of the Artificial. What a timely discussion to have, particularly with the recent enactment of the Human Rights Act 2019. My name is Madonna King, I’m your MC and it is a pleasure to be part of this discussion this year. And that’s because it marks the tenth anniversary of the Right to Information Act 2009 and the Information Privacy Act 2009 here in our state of Queensland. And today’s lecture by Fiona McLeod SC headlines a range of activities to celebrate that milestone and I’d like to acknowledge Fiona with us today, thanks Fiona. I’d also like to acknowledge our panellists, Scott McDougall, Queensland Human Rights Commissioner, Dr Brent Richards, Medical Director of Innovation at the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service, Simon McKee, Deputy Commissioner for Queensland Treasury, Phil Green, Queensland Privacy Commissioner, along with Mr Peter Russo MP, the Member for Toohey and Chair of Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee and Australian Information Access Commissioners welcome. I’d also like to apologise on behalf of David Solomon AM, who cannot be with us today but after whom this lecture is named. A few housekeeping issues before we start. Could I ask that you check that your phone is now on silent? In the unlikely event of an emergency we would just follow closely the instructions given to us by staff. The bathrooms are located out the door you came in, past the registration desk and on my right. The Edge is part of the State Library of Queensland and visitors are governed by the policies and standards that the State Library of Queensland has put in place. And finally before we get underway it’s very important for me to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging. And with that to officially welcome you can I introduce Rachael Rangihaeata, Queensland’s Information Commissioner, thank you. Applause Queensland Information Commissioner - Rachael Rangihaeata Thank you Madonna. Good morning I’m Rachael Rangihaeata, Queensland Information Commissioner and on behalf of the Office of the Information Commissioner and our event host partner, the Queensland State Library I’d like to welcome you all to this special 2019 Solomon - 1 - Office of the Information Commissioner 2019 Solomon Lecture Lecture as part of our tenth anniversary celebrations. Firstly I would like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this event is taking place. I would also like to pay my respects to the elders both past and present and emerging. I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge Dr David Solomon in whose honour we hold our annual lecture. Dr Solomon had planned to be here with us today and is very disappointed to miss this event. Today we are marking the tenth anniversary of the Right to Information Act and the Information Privacy Act in Queensland. Our legislation resulted from the landmark independent panel review of freedom of information in Queensland, chaired by Dr Solomon. I would like to extend a warm welcome to Fiona McLeod, Senior Counsel, our Solomon lecturer today. I would also like to welcome and thank our panellists for sharing their experience and views in the State Library and for co-hosting this event. I also acknowledge our distinguished guests joining us today, Mr Peter Russo, Chair of the Queensland Parliamentary Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee. My integrity committee colleagues, Queensland Ombudsman, Phil Clarke, Chair, Crime and Corruption Commission, Alan MacSporran QC, and Integrity Commissioner, Nikola Stepanov. And my Australian and New Zealand colleagues, Information Commissioners and Ombudsman joining us today. It is also pleasing to see many agency leaders and representatives engaging with this event across different sectors including statutory bodies, departments, local government, government owned corporations and public authorities. Over the past ten years of Right to Information, Information Privacy Acts some consistent key themes have been represented in the work of Queensland government agencies, my office and Solomon lectures. As expected, greater maturity and technical compliance has facilitated more strategic engagement in both advice and audit and increased in complexity in matters coming to our office on external review and privacy complaints. Technology has changed significantly since 2009. It presents great opportunities, efficiencies and expectations for service delivery and information delivery and broader operation of government. 195 government agencies across Queensland recently confirmed in the ten years on self assessment audit, that they have less maturity and a greater need for improvement on areas relating to technology, presenting greater risk in how we adopt technology without ensuring appropriate systems and processes are in place. Importantly only 25% of agencies reported appropriate processes for privacy impact assessments were in place, a critical tool for assessing and addressing privacy risks. Similarly rapid adoption of technology is often not managed appropriately to ensure information access obligations can be met. While the technology has rapidly evolved over the past ten years many of the issues are similar. The best results tend to occur when agencies take what is commonly known as a by-design approach, where privacy and information access are - 2 - Office of the Information Commissioner 2019 Solomon Lecture considered and built into the design of projects and policies from the beginning. The opposite approach tends to result in unaccepted outcomes for the community and government and negative publicity that diminishes trust. Public lack of trust can easily undermine use of key technology initiatives, moving to a push model of proactive release and administrative access where formal applications are a last resort in conjunctive, in conjunction with a new legislative regime for information privacy. Always represented, a necessary culture change that would occur overtime with strong and consistent leadership. Culture and leadership have been consistent themes of our work in past Solomon lectures. Each of these lectures by eminent speakers, such as Emeritus Professor Richard Mulgan, Kerry O’Brien and Professor Ken Smith, have provoked discussions, engaged audiences and challenged us to further the objectives of the legislation in the current and future context in which we operate. What has always been clear and brought home by each lecture is that the legislation and the broader objection, objectives is about the rights of the community, the public interest and the government’s role as custodian of information. Government has a higher responsibility and expectation from the community in the context of recent developments to manage personnel information in particular with care and transparency. It is of particular significance that as we mark ten years of rights to information access and privacy in Queensland, following the Solomon report, we are also marking 30 years since the Fitzgerald report, which led to the first information access rights under the Freedom of Information Act in 1992, and the creation of my office. We also mark our tenth anniversary in the context of new human rights in Queensland from January next year. The rights to information privacy and information access form parts of two new human rights and will therefore continue to evolve taking us forward into a new era. Bringing her diverse experience including as co-chair, open government forum, open government partnership and chair of both transparency international Australia and the accountability round table and as a recognised human rights advocate we ask Fiona to focus on transparency, openness and accountability in the context of increasing adoption of technologies such as artificial intelligence in government functions and decision making. I am sure you will agree that Fiona’s lecture promises to live up to the Solomon lecture reputation. It’s particularly topical and we look forward to it in the panel discussion today. Artificial intelligence is currently the subject of great interest in this area. The United Kingdom Information Commissioner has recruited a post doctorial research fellow NAI to head a team to develop an auditing framework and guidance for AI as a key strategic objective for the office. Over the last six months the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner has collaborated with experts in the AI field to produce a book titled Closer to the Machine, Technical, Social and Legal Aspects of AI. OVIC will - 3 - Office of the Information Commissioner 2019 Solomon Lecture celebrate the launch of this publication this Friday, 30th of August in Melbourne with an event which will be live streamed. Finally I take this opportunity to thank our wonderful team who continue to take pride in performing our statutory functions with excellence and providing high quality services to the community in a respectful manner every day. Thank you. Applause MC - Madonna King Thanks Rachael, and that ten year mark, what an important milestone, and 30 years since the Fitzgerald report. Who actually remembers it being handed down? Yeah, so at least 50% of us. I think I was a reporter in nappies back then, but I think an indication of how important it was or is to this state is I recently asked my 14 year old what was it about and she could tell me. Mind you she did say it was handed down by the Labor Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. So I’ve got a bit more work to do there.

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