# GUIDING PRINCIPLES FORSURVEILLANCE

## USING THIS GUIDE

The Guiding Principles for Surveillance ( Guiding Principles ) and accompanying Checklist and Case Studies should be used by any Victorian public sector organisation that monitors or analyses personal information or data. Surveillance can include, but is not limited to, the use of CCTV, remote invigilator software, analytics software, user management and monitoring tools, artificial intelligence, or tracking employee logins and activity, irrespective of the purpose of the data collection or analysis. Using the Guiding Principles and Checklist will support organisations to identify and evaluate surveillance practices and take a privacy and human rights enhancing approach to its use. The Guiding Principles must be interpreted alongside legislative frameworks applicable to organisations, such as legislation permitting or prohibiting surveillance generally, or in specific instances.

## SURVEILLANCE AND THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY

Organisations that use surveillance to collect personal information have various obligations under the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 ( PDP Act ) and the Information Privacy Principles ( IPPs ). These obligations require organisations to undertake surveillance in a privacy enhancing way, which involves protecting the privacy of individuals that the information is about, and collecting and handling personal 1 information in a transparent and responsible manner. The sophistication of surveillance technologies is improving exponentially. These advancements increase the risk that unlawful or arbitrary surveillance will interfere with the right to privacy. This highlights the importance of organisations adopting a privacy enhancing approach to surveillance that respects the human rights of Victorians. Surveillance that is not undertaken with a privacy enhancing approach has the potential to interfere with 2 various civil liberties that are fundamental to Victoria's democracy. International human rights law and the 3 Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities codify and preserve these civil liberties, while the PDP Act and the IPPs both complement and enhance these rights. The Guiding Principles provide organisations with an ethical framework for the use of surveillance that respects and protects privacy and human rights, and assists organisations to meet their duties and obligations. Using a human rights lens, the Guiding Principles apply the obligations under the IPPs to how they would generally operate when organisations use surveillance to collect and analyse personal information. This guidance should be read alongside the PDP Act and the IPPs, as well as OVIC's Artificial Intelligence resources and the Technology Systems and Solutions resources . Together, these resources form a framework that is designed to guide organisations on complying with the PDP Act and IPPs, and upholding individual human rights when using surveillance.

## DEFINITION OF SURVEILLANCE

Surveillance is the monitoring and analysis of data to collect information about persons, groups, and 4 contexts, often through the use of technology. Surveillance technologies are tools used to conduct