Eliza Wilson began her push to better protect victims of sexual assault after an alleged incident inside Cube on February 20 went unresolved due to the lack of CCTV evidence.

Ms Wilson met with MLA Tara Cheyne last week and has been invited to speak with Australian Hotels Association ACT general manager Anthony Brierley.

Describing Ms Wilson's experience as "awful", Mr Brierley noted the potential for video quality to degrade if storage exceeded the 21 days he said most venues were required to keep under liquor-licensing agreements.

"It is already a legislative requirement to comply with an approved RAMP (risk assessment management plan)," Mr Brierley said.

"Therefore, in most cases there is already a legislative requirement to store CCTV footage for 21 days. Putting this requirement in legislation instead of the RAMP would have no practical effect, as the requirement already exists in legislation."

Cube's policy of taping over its footage every seven to nine days was found to be in breach of its liquor licence agreement, which stipulates it should be kept for 21 days.

ACT Policing and the ACT government confirmed this week no disciplinary action had yet been taken against the nightclub.

Mr Brierley said the implementation of ID scanners was an outdated technology which had been trialled in ACT hospitality venues many times already.

"It has proved slow, expensive and unreliable," he said.

"There are now better alternatives. If the government's desire is to track every individual within a licensed restaurant, bar or pub, then facial recognition technology is faster, more reliable and provides a seamless customer experience."

Mr Brierley said the technology was cost-prohibitive as there seemed to be the assumption hospitality businesses would absorb the expense.

"That would not be a fair imposition while they continue to suffer the financial impact of ongoing coronavirus restrictions," he said.

"I'm not sure Canberrans will be comfortable with facial recognition technology being rolled out in licensed restaurants, bars and pubs. It will mean that a patron's every movement throughout the ACT's hospitality venues would be tracked in real-time by the ACT government. People will rightly feel uncomfortable at that prospect.

"There will also be concern around how data is stored, who has access to it and how data breaches are avoided."

Ms Cheyne, the ACT's Minister for Human Rights, said since meeting with Ms Wilson she had raised the CCTV storage proposal with Shane Rattenbury, who oversees liquor licensing.

Ms Cheyne said both her and Mr Rattenbury were open to exploring what led Queensland to mandate a 28-day storage for footage and whether it had led to positive outcomes.

"No one should feel unsafe at any time in any place, no matter your gender, no matter whether you've been drinking or not," Ms Cheyne said.

"It should be that there are safe environments created where there are safe behaviours on display but also that there are procedures in place if an incident were to occur that are satisfactory from everyone's perspective. I absolutely commend Eliza for coming forward and bringing this to broader attention right across the community so that we can ensure that as a community we're working towards that.

"This should never be about victim-blaming. This should be about what kind of standards and cultures and environments we're creating."

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