State Member for Wallsend, Ms Sonia Hornery MP, has expressed her concern after the NSW Government last week announced a new Regulation that will allow for the privatisation of Service NSW Centres in the Wallsend electorate.
Currently Service NSW employees are bound by the Privacy and Personal Information Act 1998, but the Government has moved to approve seven private companies to have access to private and sensitive data.
The data includes Births, Deaths and Marriages, Driver Licence information, Vehicle ownership and registration details, E-Tag accounts and dozens of other Government services.
Quotes attributable to Member for Wallsend, Sonia Hornery
“It is worrying that the Government is attempting to set up Service NSW for privatisation by stealth.”
“Instead of going through normal processes, the Government has changed the rules and just used a Regulation to give access to everybody’s private information to private companies. There has been no debate in the Parliament.”
“There have been a number of problems with Service NSW since it introduced the new Service NSW Centres in 2014.”
“More than 1600 drivers licences have been lost in the mail since the Government moved to stop them being printed locally at each office and operating hours have been cut by 25%.”
“I am sure the community will be concerned that a number of private companies will now have access to all of their private and sensitive data without the same checks and balances in place.”
“You only have to look at the history of some of these companies to be worried about the safety of our data.”
“If Service NSW Centres are to be privatised, what will happen to local jobs in the Wallsend electorate.”