Matthew Abraham: Grant Stevens says police won’t get access to the data to pursue you for other offences ... I’m struggling to believe that

The pandemic has turbocharged a smash-and-grab of our personal data by the government, its health bureaucrats and its police, writes Matthew Abraham.

The marine safety cops at the West Beach boat ramp always seem friendly enough, in that vaguely ominous police officer kind of way. Two weeks back an excellent officer approached as I struggled solo to moor the tinny against a cruel southwesterly that had left the boat looking like the wreck of the Hesperus. With his body-cam rolling, he ran through the usual questions. Fire extinguisher in good order? Check. Flares in date? Check. Rego current? Check. Boat licence? Check. Wearing a life jacket? Obviously.

He then checked my home address, which is on the licence, and asked for my mobile phone number. I was tempted to say, “No, and why do you need that, because I really, really don’t like handing over my phone number for no good reason, officer”. But who needs an argument with the rozzers at the boat ramp when you’ve got garfish to fillet? So my mobile number’s now in his database. Check.

Former PM Paul Keating once lamented: “Never get between a Premier and a bucket of money”. The new gold in the bucket is data – your most personal, private information – and governments can’t get enough of the stuff.

The COVID pandemic has turbocharged a smash-and-grab of our personal data by the government, its health bureaucrats and its police. On Tuesday, the government launched its latest COVID “game changer”, QR codes at thousands of businesses – gyms, swimming pools, cafes, pubs, but not, oddly, supermarkets.

Using the mySAGov app on your phone, scan the black-and-white squiggly square displayed at the premises and it sends your personal information, along with the time and location of your visit, straight to the Marshall Government.

It was a shambolic launch, perfectly in sync with a shambolic week that saw the government lurching from embarrassing apologies to yet more pandemic “misunderstandings”. How else can you describe the ridiculous outcome of SA Police’s Taskforce Protect? The team of 20 crack detectives were set up in a hot-headed attempt to nail the COVID-infected alleged pizza bar “liar” but came up with a big fat nothing. Now the lawyered-up Spanish national may sue for defamation. Why not?

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall demonstrates checking in via QR code at the Stag Hotel. Picture: Kelly Barnes/Getty Images

Meanwhile, honest citizens pointing phones at a government QR code are innocently surrendering all the information a government could desire. Yes, it’s for our own safety, to allow SA Health contact tracers to move quickly to crack a coronavirus outbreak. Our data will be held for 28 days and then dumped. It’s encrypted, too. Big deal. Police Commissioner Grant Stevens says police won’t get access to the data to pursue you for other offences. He’s an honest man but I’m struggling to believe that.

Perhaps it’s reassuring SA Health refused to hand detectives details of conversations between its contact tracers and the pizza guy, placing it in the same category as a doctor-patient consult. But that was small mozzarella. Are we to believe if police are building a case to charge a murderer or a terrorist, they’d be denied access to QR code data about the suspect’s movements?

What about ICAC? MPs now deploy an awkward code when talking to journalists on the phone, presuming we’re being bugged. Could ICAC access your data? Maybe we’re not even allowed to ask.

The new QR code and updated mySAGov app were barely hours old when Commissioner Stevens signalled this was just the start. He told The Advertiser authorities were investigating continued use of the QR code even after emergency declarations end.

“I know I prefer to be scanning a QR code having my data held centrally in an encrypted database than pieces of paper floating around businesses,” he said.

“We don’t think it’s going to take very long for people to accept this as a new part of life in South Australia while we are dealing with COVID-19.”

Really commissioner? Says who? Why stop there? Why not make it a new part of life for SA when the COVID music stops?

These extraordinary measures should never become “a new part of life” on the say-so of unelected bureaucrats and police, with no parliamentary scrutiny. Privacy surrendered? Check.