New South Wales Consolidated Acts

SURVEILLANCE DEVICES ACT 2007 - SECT 11

11 Prohibition on communication or publication of private conversations or recordings of activities

(1) A person must not publish, or communicate to any person, a private conversation or a record of the carrying on of an activity, or a report of a private conversation or carrying on of an activity, that has come to the person’s knowledge as a direct or indirect result of the use of a listening device, an optical surveillance device or a tracking device in contravention of a provision of this Part.

Maximum penalty: 500 penalty units (in the case of a corporation) or 100 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment, or both (in any other case).

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to the following:

(a) if the communication or publication is made:

(i) to a party to the private conversation or activity, or

(ii) with the consent, express or implied, of all the principal parties to the private conversation or activity, or

(iii) for the purpose of investigating or prosecuting an offence against this section, or

(iv) in the course of proceedings for an offence against this Act or the regulations,

(b) if the communication or publication is no more than is reasonably necessary in connection with an imminent threat of:

(i) serious violence to persons or of substantial damage to property, or

(ii) commission of a serious narcotics offence.

(3) A person who obtains knowledge of a private conversation or activity in a manner that does not involve a contravention of a provision of this Part is not prevented from communicating or publishing the knowledge so obtained even if the same knowledge was also obtained in a manner that contravened this Part.