When I refer to proposed section 39, what it really serves to do is degrade public transparency and and public trust in our public institutions because of two things.
First, it requires businesses to de-identify personal information before transfer to a public institution. That means they don't have to adhere to knowledge or consent requirements as long as they de-identify. The other thing proposed section 39 does is allow the minister to prescribe additional public entities and new socially beneficial purposes with which to engage this exception to knowledge or consent. This facilitates unwarranted secrecy in the way that public institutions obtain personal information from the private sector to use in the policy decisions that affect us all.