Privacy, the war on terror and the modern Australian state

Privacy is a concept that is philosophically vague and legally weak in the Australian common law. Considered in philosophical terms, the issue has been bedevilled by spatial, bodily and proprietary concepts. Meanwhile, threats to privacy and data security multiply as technological change creates more privacy-invasive opportunities. This is particularly so in the post-September 11 world, where the surveillance powers of the State are in the ascendant. At the moment there are two parallel streams: a non-State regime in which protection of individual privacy is fragmented and weak; and a State-driven one based on profiling and interventionist strategies of risk identification and management.Encryption enhances privacy, but in the contemporary climate it conflicts with the interests of the State. The ethical issues need to be clarified before they can be resolved.