The Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, has made a submission to the
Attorney-General’s Department on the second exposure draft of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Bill 2006.

The Office has made a number of recommendations, including that:

• a separate process be undertaken to consider the issue of whether Australian government agencies, other than the traditional law enforcement agencies, should be  able to have direct access to AUSTRAC information to use for purposes unrelated to anti-money laundering and
  counter-terrorism financing;
• the Bill needs to ensure that information collected by AUSTRAC that is passed on to state and
  territory government agencies will be subject to adequate privacy protection. Not all states and territories have enacted privacy legislation, which means there is a lack of uniformity in the protections and the remedies available; and
• there should be limits on how long the information collected under this legislation
  should be kept by reporting entities and government agencies.

The Office has also recommended that a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) be
conducted on the operation of this legislation, ideally by an
independent expert specialising in privacy issues and the conduct of
PIAs.