By David Crowe
Personal privacy will be protected under new federal laws that criminalise “doxxing” after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vowed to bring forward the changes to counter activists who published the names and details of hundreds of Jewish people.
Albanese condemned the release of identifying information – including a photo gallery and social media details – and promised tougher laws to stop the malicious publication of private information.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during question time on Monday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
In a dramatic shift in the scope and speed of the federal action, the government plans to put urgent privacy laws to parliament while also developing stronger laws against hate speech after months of dispute over the war in the Middle East.
The plans respond to anti-Zionist activists who published the names and details of almost 600 Jewish writers, artists and academics last week, prompting some pro-Palestinian writers to spread the leaked details before others denounced the move.
The new federal law will make it a criminal offence to engage in doxxing and similar harassment, while making broader changes in response to long-running review of the Privacy Act overseen by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.
The changes will include an exemption for public interest journalism such as reporting on public figures.
“I’ve asked the Attorney-General to bring forward legislation in response to the Privacy Act review, including laws that deal with so-called doxxing, which is basically the malicious publication of private information online,” Albanese said on radio station 2GB on Monday.
He singled out the treatment of the 600 Jewish people, including singer Deborah Conway, as a major concern because the individuals had joined a WhatsApp group that was not heavily political and sought to provide support to each other because of the rise of anti-semitism.
“And what we’ve seen is them being targeted,” Albanese said.
“Now these people have a range of views about the Middle East. What they have in common, though, is the fact that they’re members of the Jewish community.
“And the idea that in Australia, someone should be targeted because of their religion, because of their faith – whether they be Jewish, or Muslim or Hindu or Catholic or Buddhist – is just completely unacceptable.
“And that’s why I’ve asked, as well, the Attorney-General to develop proposals to strengthen laws against hate speech, which we will be doing. This is not the Australia that we want to see.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion welcomed the move and said the stronger law was needed to deal with doxxing.
“While existing laws outlaw the use of social media platforms to menace and threaten others, the doxxers themselves, who orchestrated a campaign of intimidation, violent threats and horrific abuse, cannot be allowed to get away with it,” he said.
“We have called for an end to the impunity and we are grateful that the government has listened.”
The federal plans leap ahead of state moves on hate speech after the controversy over a pro-Palestinian gathering at the Sydney Opera House last October and a decision by NSW Premier Chris Minns to seek an independent review of the hate speech provisions of state criminal law.
The federal government was already committed to an overhaul of the Privacy Act to create a new right to privacy – also known as a “privacy tort” – but the prime minister’s comments accelerate the process and emphasise the need to criminalise doxxing.
On hate speech, Dreyfus had already promised new measures to protect people from hate speech and vilification based on their faith in a religious discrimination law later this year, but the prime minister’s comments also signal stronger action.
Dreyfus told this masthead he would introduce the law against doxxing as soon as possible.
“The recent targeting of members of the Australian Jewish community through doxxing was shocking, but sadly a far from isolated event,” he said. “No Australian should be targeted because of their race or religion.”
The votes in parliament on the privacy safeguards and the hate-speech law will depend on the details of the two separate initiatives after years of dispute over the balance between the right to privacy, the protection from vilification and the right to free speech.
Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it an offence under federal law for someone to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” another person on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, but the Liberal Party sought to scale back this protection a decade ago because it sought to champion free speech.
But Opposition Leader Peter Dutton signalled support for tougher federal laws last Friday when he expressed his concern at the doxxing during a visit to Melbourne.
“Frankly, if that is not something the police are looking at now, then I believe they should urgently look at it,” he said.
“If the laws need to be beefed up then they should, because it shames me to say that people of Jewish faith in our country at the moment, many of them living with great angst, and we’ve seen a situation where security has been bolstered at Jewish schools at synagogues, at supermarkets, that has no place in our country in the 21st century at all.”
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