Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697640731466.pdf (Australia)
Page 3 Treasury Legislation Amendment (Unclaimed Money and Other Measures) Bill 2012 Introduced into the House of Representatives on 30 October 2012 Portfolio: Treasury Committee view The committee has written to the Treasurer seeking clarification on a 1.2 number of issues before forming a view on the bill's compatibility with human rights.
Purpose of the bill This bill amends the Banking Act 1959, First Home Saver Accounts Act 2008 1.3 and Life Insurance Act 1995 to: - reduce to three years the period before amounts held by authorised deposit- taking institutions, first home saver account providers and life insurance companies are treated as unclaimed moneys; and - provide for the payment of interest on unclaimed moneys claimed after 1 July 2013; The bill also amends the Superannuation (Unclaimed Money and Lost 1.4 Members) Act 1999 to: - increase to $2000 the balance threshold below which small lost accounts are required to be transferred to the Commissioner of Taxation; - decrease to 12 months the period of inactivity before inactive accounts of unidentifiable members are required to be transferred to the Commissioner; and - provide for the payment of interest on all unclaimed superannuation moneys claimed after 1 July 2013.
Finally, the bill amends the Australian Securities and Investments Commission 1.5 Act 2001 to close the Companies and Unclaimed Moneys Special Account; and the Corporations Act 2001 to establish a new process for the receipt and payment of unclaimed property and provide for the payment of interest on unclaimed property claimed after 1 July 2013.
Compatibility with human rights 1.6 The bill is accompanied by a brief statement of compatibility which states that the bill ‘does not engage any of the applicable rights or freedoms’, does not raise any human rights issues and is therefore compatible with human rights.

Right to privacy Any Member or Senator who wishes to draw matters to the attention of the committee under the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 is invited to do so.
Page 4 1.7 The effect of the bill is to increase the dollar threshold of accounts that fall under the different statutes and to reduce the period of time for which a person may leave particular types of account without activity before sums standing to the credit of the accounts are required to be paid to the Australian Taxation Office (subject to being reclaimed, with interest, by the owner of the funds).
The types of accounts include regular bank accounts, first homesavers accounts, unclaimed life insurance funds, superannuation funds, and unclaimed moneys under the Corporations Act 2001.

The sums eligible to be transferred include amounts of up to $2,000 (up from $200); examples of the reduction of time are from 7 years to 3 years for bank accounts, and from 3 years to 1 year for superannuation accounts.
1.8 A person’s operation of a bank account or superannuation account, including decisions as to what transactions the person wishes to engage in through that account, fall with the area of the person’s private life, guaranteed by article 17 of the ICCPR.

Accordingly, a person’s right not to be subject to arbitrary or unlawful interference with their private life is engaged by an externally imposed requirement that balances in an account owned by them be transferred to the ATO after a specified period.
A person’s right to property is also engaged, although this right is not guaranteed as a freestanding right in the human rights treaties that fall under the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011.

However, any discrimination in the enjoyment of the right to property would be covered under various human rights guarantees, including article 26 of the ICCPR.
1.9 The question thus becomes whether the interference is aimed at the achievement of a legitimate objective, whether there is a rational connection is limitation and the objective, and whether the between the proportionate to that restriction.
The explanatory memorandum explains in general terms that: limitation ‘The Bill will bring forward the time at which money is recognised under the relevant law as lost or unclaimed, helping to reunite people with their money earlier, and will protect superannuation account balances transferred to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) from erosion by fees and charges.’ 1.10 The objective advanced is thus to preserve the person’s funds from being eroded by fees and charges, which could be seen as a legitimate objective.
The removal of funds to the ATO and the establishment of procedures for the reclaiming of those funds as well as the requirement to pay interest on balances, would have the effect of preserving balances.

The issue of proportionality is less clear, and the explanatory memorandum does not offer an justification for the dramatic reduction in the period that must elapse before the obligation to transfer the funds to the ATO is activated.
Any Member or Senator who wishes to draw matters to the attention of the committee under the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 is invited to do so.

Page 5 The committee seeks clarification of the basis for determining that the 1.11 significant reduction in the time which must elapse before funds are required to be transferred is a proportionate means of achieving the objectives pursued by the bill.
Right to privacy The ease of access to procedures for the recovery of funds that are 1.12 transferred as lost or unclaimed funds is also relevant to the permissibility of the interference with the right to privacy.

The system provided for under the legislation involves easy access by members of the public through the website of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission to an on-line database of unclaimed funds (https://www.moneysmart.gov.au/).
Any person may search under any name and if there is a record under that the name, the database will display the full name of the account holder, the amount in the account, the address of the person or the institution, and the name of the institution at which the account was held.

1.13 While this system is extremely easy to access and use (and thus facilitates any effort by the owner of funds to reclaim them), the availability of this personal data also engages the right to privacy.
There is no consideration of this issue in the explanatory memorandum or in the statement of compatibility.

The committee seeks clarification of whether the procedures for identifying 1.14 lost or unclaimed funds and seeking their return, in particular the availability of personal information online, engage the right to privacy of individual account holders and whether the procedures involve a permissible limitation on the enjoyment of that right.
Any Member or Senator who wishes to draw matters to the attention of the committee under the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 is invited to do so.