6PR Breakfast host Gareth Parker has slammed the state government for allowing police to access data from the SafeWA app as part of a police investigation.

Emergency legislation was introduced to WA Parliament yesterday to stop anyone other than WA Health being able to access the data.

But when the mandatory contact tracing program was introduced last year the state government promised the data would be secure.

“They promised solemnly that the data would only be available for contact tracers, they promised the data would be encrypted,” Parker said.

“Well guess what that’s not true!

“The government hasn’t kept its word and it can’t be trusted.

“Let’s be specific though, WA police haven’t kept their word, and it is an extremely reckless and shortsighted thing for the Commissioner of Police, Chris Dawson, to do.

“When the Premier became aware of the police seeking this contact tracing information in April, he asked the Police Commissioner to stop doing it, and the Police Commissioner refused.”

The data was used by police during their investigations into the high profile murder of Nick Martin, who was allegedly shot dead by a sniper at Kwinana Motorplex.

“Today you can justify using it for a murder investigation, tomorrow you can justify it for some other creeping purpose,” Parker said.

“We don’t set up a system in a free society that compels people, under threat of penalty, to register their every movement and then give police access to that system.

“WA Police already have plenty of tools available to them to investigate crime.

“This is a major breach of trust”

Press PLAY to hear more of Gareth Parker’s comments