No evidence of data harvesting by SA Government, privacy committee finds

No evidence has been found that the SA government harvested personal data but Labor says not all allegations have been addressed.

There is no evidence that personal data has been harvested from users looking at State Government websites, a report has found.

But the opposition says an inquiry into the matter did not address all of the allegations.

The state’s Privacy Committee was tasked with investigating whether any breaches of government rules or privacy had taken place, after Labor alleged that users had unwittingly been redirected through a data-harvesting platform.

Labor claimed that information collected was later used to send unsolicited political emails from Premier Steven Marshall’s Liberal Party email account.

Premier Steven Marshall has repeatedly denied the allegations. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Morgan Sette

But Attorney-General Vickie Chapman, who tabled the report in parliament on Wednesday, said the committee found no personal information had been collected through website redirections, and no breach of Information Privacy Principles occurred.

The report also noted that no formal complaints relating to the use of the platform NationBuilder had been received by the committee at the time the document was prepared.

“This government takes very seriously any misuse of personal information, either directly or inadvertently,” Ms Chapman said.

“Despite the hysterical claims of Tom Koutsantonis and his Labor Party of this being the ‘biggest scandal in South Australia’s history’, the Privacy Committee has confirmed what the Premier has said from the outset – it never happened.

“I thank the committee for its time in preparing this report.”

However, Mr Koutsantonis, the opposition’s government accountability spokesperson, said the investigation did not properly address the allegations.

“A committee that Attorney-General Vickie Chapman states answers to her has reported the government didn’t collect data through NationBuilder,” he said.

“That wasn’t the question. The question was always: did the Liberal Party collect data through NationBuilder from government websites? We still don’t know.”

The Labor Party had conducted a two-month investigation into data harvesting concerns raised by members of the public.

It said the investigation showed a person who submitted their details to an SA Health website later began receiving emails from Mr Marshall’s Liberal Party account.

The report tabled in parliament also said “risks have been mitigated” because the removal of links redirected through NationBuilder had been removed, and links are no longer copied from press releases.

Mr Koutsantonis questioned why these practices had been altered.

“If they’re not doing anything wrong, why did they have to change anything?” he said.