ACT prison authorities are embroiled in a row with lawyers and police over controversial retina-scanning technology at the territory's new jail.
Professional visitors to the Alexander Maconochie Centre have baulked at the ACT Government's hard line on compulsory eye scans for visitors to the Hume prison, alleging that demands by jail authorities for biometric information constitute a human rights breach.
All visitors to the Alexander Maconochie Centre must undergo the scans, which identify the visitor by taking an image of their eye and storing the image on a database, but several groups are worried that the scans are over-the-top, intrusive and a breach of the visitors' human rights.
Solicitors from Legal Aid, the Aboriginal Legal Service and some private practice firms have flatly refused to go to the jail to consult clients if they are forced to submit to the scans, despite assurances from Corrective Services that the information would not be misused.
The lawyers say they are worried about the security of the information being stored by the leak-prone Department of Corrective Services and some ACT police officers have also refused to submit to the scans, arguing that they should not have to undergo what they believe is an intrusive forensic procedure in the course of their duty.
But ACT Corrective Services say the data scanning and storage is allowed under ACT law, that legal protections are in place and that the agency is working to resolve the dispute.
Deputy principal lawyer for the NSW and ACT Aboriginal Legal Service's southern zone, Jeremy Styles, said yesterday that the Canberra-based lawyers in his agency were ''furious'' at being asked to undergo the scans and that several had refused.
''Some of our lawyers are furious and I'm fairly unhappy about it,'' Mr Styles said.
''It appears to be a breach of human rights because they are taking information that is integral to your very being.''
''There are no particular protections and it's an appalling state of affairs.''
The lawyer said his agency did not have a problem in NSW jails where Law Society ID cards were enough for an approved solicitor to gain access to his clients.
Mr Styles said the ACT Government had conceded that the scans might be a breach of human rights but that Section28 of the Human Rights Act allowed breaches if they were justified in the circumstances.
''They've opened up this new jail and they've taken the opportunity to take this very hard line,'' Mr Styles said. ''It's a fairly black and white issue for us: either lawyers are allowed in without giving up their biometric information, or they're not.''
All lawyers with clients locked up at the centre needed to hold face-to-face conferences with the prisoners and the Government's hard line was interfering with detainees' access to legal representation, Mr Styles said.
''The problem for us is that we need to have face-to-face contacts with our clients to effectively represent them but we want the biometric system to be varied to allow lawyers in without giving up that information,'' he said.
There were also fears among the legal profession about the storage and disclosure of the information.
''The problem with the government department is that the information is held on that system and data transfers between government departments can be fairly porous and it sometimes doesn't take much of a request to have those privacy provisions breached.
''It's a real concern where all this information would end up.''
But a Corrective Services spokeswoman said yesterday retina scanning at Hume was governed by the Privacy Act 1988 and the Territory Records Act 2002 and that all visitors to the jail had been assured there would be no misuse of information.
''Assurances have been given to visitors to the AMC that the management of personal data collected via the iris scanner at the AMC is governed by the Privacy Act 1988 [and] data collected via the iris scanner will not be disclosed to any other agency or organisation without the consent of the individual,'' the spokeswoman said.
She said that the prison's agency was working with professional visitors to resolve the row.
''ACT Corrective Services is currently engaging in consultation with all relevant parties,'' she said.