More than 100 listening devices were installed in Victorian prisons in the last 20 years without proper legal approval, according to a new report.
Integrity Oversight Victoria found that at least 115 of these surveillance devices were installed around the state, often at times when construction or renovation was taking place at a prison, between 2000 and 2018.
The watchdog found that these permanent listening devices were not installed under the authorisation of a warrant, and when police were applying to turn one of these devices on as part of investigations, the courts were not told that they were already installed.
“It is our assessment that Victoria Police did not comply with the Surveillance Devices Act when installing and maintaining integrated listening devices,” the report said.
Integrity Oversight Victoria said that while there was no evidence that the listening devices had been turned on illegally in the prisons, there were also no records from the time to confirm they had only been activated under warrants.
“We were unable to definitively verify whether activations of the integrated listening devices were consistent with warrants due to the unavailability of primary records that indicated when these devices were activated,” the report said.
Since becoming aware that the installation of these listening devices may have been illegal, Victoria Police said it immediately terminated use of them, and is working to determine if recordings from the devices were used as part of prosecutions.
Criminal defence lawyer Felix Ralph, a partner at MJR Criminal Lawyers, has regularly visited prisons in Victoria to meet with clients, and said he was concerned to read the report.
“I think it’s outrageous,” Ralph told About Time. “I think that people in prison should be rightly concerned about this as a human rights abuse. I just think it’s extraordinary.
“This is an industrialised and normalised procedure, and I think it was an open secret in prisons.”
The report investigated 99 warrants issued from 2008 to 2024 seeking to install listening devices in prisons in Victoria. It found that Victoria Police did not tell the judge about the permanent listening devices when it applied for these warrants.
Most of the applications were for the “installation and use” of listening devices in prisons, when they were mostly just being turned on or off,
and left sitting within the prison.
The report said that the use of listening devices in prisons is a “significant investigative tool and one that Victoria Police is eager to keep confidential to protect its efficacy”.
Victoria Police is now removing some parts of the devices to make them unusable until new warrants are issued, and looking at retrospective reforms to make their use legal.
Police are also doing “considerable analysis” to identify whether recordings from these devices were used in prosecutions, and will then make “appropriate disclosures”.
More than 100 listening devices were installed in Victorian prisons in the last 20 years without proper legal approval, according to a new report.
Integrity Oversight Victoria found that at least 115 of these surveillance devices were installed around the state, often at times when construction or renovation was taking place at a prison, between 2000 and 2018.
The watchdog found that these permanent listening devices were not installed under the authorisation of a warrant, and when police were applying to turn one of these devices on as part of investigations, the courts were not told that they were already installed.
“It is our assessment that Victoria Police did not comply with the Surveillance Devices Act when installing and maintaining integrated listening devices,” the report said.
Integrity Oversight Victoria said that while there was no evidence that the listening devices had been turned on illegally in the prisons, there were also no records from the time to confirm they had only been activated under warrants.
“We were unable to definitively verify whether activations of the integrated listening devices were consistent with warrants due to the unavailability of primary records that indicated when these devices were activated,” the report said.
Since becoming aware that the installation of these listening devices may have been illegal, Victoria Police said it immediately terminated use of them, and is working to determine if recordings from the devices were used as part of prosecutions.
Criminal defence lawyer Felix Ralph, a partner at MJR Criminal Lawyers, has regularly visited prisons in Victoria to meet with clients, and said he was concerned to read the report.
“I think it’s outrageous,” Ralph told About Time. “I think that people in prison should be rightly concerned about this as a human rights abuse. I just think it’s extraordinary.
“This is an industrialised and normalised procedure, and I think it was an open secret in prisons.”
The report investigated 99 warrants issued from 2008 to 2024 seeking to install listening devices in prisons in Victoria. It found that Victoria Police did not tell the judge about the permanent listening devices when it applied for these warrants.
Most of the applications were for the “installation and use” of listening devices in prisons, when they were mostly just being turned on or off,
and left sitting within the prison.
The report said that the use of listening devices in prisons is a “significant investigative tool and one that Victoria Police is eager to keep confidential to protect its efficacy”.
Victoria Police is now removing some parts of the devices to make them unusable until new warrants are issued, and looking at retrospective reforms to make their use legal.
Police are also doing “considerable analysis” to identify whether recordings from these devices were used in prosecutions, and will then make “appropriate disclosures”.
In response to the report, Victoria Police said that the listening devices were only ever activated with the permission of a valid warrant.
It acknowledged that “there were implications if information obtained from these devices was relied on in prosecutions”.
Ralph said that more investigation needs to take place into the use of the listening devices.
“In an ideal world there’d be a Royal Commission into this,” he said.
“If you keep pulling at the thread of the sweater it’ll unravel. I want to know whether it was done during legally privileged conversations. There are also really sensitive and legitimate conversations happening in those areas, like sending psychologists or psychiatrists in to discuss with people in prison, really intimate details they would discuss with no-one.”
It’s not the first time that the potentially illegal use of surveillance devices in Australian prisons has been revealed.
It was revealed in 2023 that listening devices had been unlawfully recording conversations in meeting rooms at Risdon Prison, in Tasmania, for 2 months in 2017.
The devices were installed with a warrant to record a conversation between a target and their lawyer but were left on and continued to record more than 700 meetings in the rooms for another 2 months.
These recordings were then transmitted to a police headquarters. The judge for the trial in question ruled that the recordings could not be used in court as the warrant used to obtain them was too broad. A subsequent investigation determined that none of these conversations were monitored or downloaded by police.
The Victorian Ombudsman in 2012 released a report on the death of Carl Williams at Barwon Prison, revealing that 10 listening devices were found in multiple units at the prison, which had been installed without a warrant.
These listening devices were inoperable, the report said.
In response to the report, Victoria Police said that the listening devices were only ever activated with the permission of a valid warrant.
It acknowledged that “there were implications if information obtained from these devices was relied on in prosecutions”.
Ralph said that more investigation needs to take place into the use of the listening devices.
“In an ideal world there’d be a Royal Commission into this,” he said.
“If you keep pulling at the thread of the sweater it’ll unravel. I want to know whether it was done during legally privileged conversations. There are also really sensitive and legitimate conversations happening in those areas, like sending psychologists or psychiatrists in to discuss with people in prison, really intimate details they would discuss with no-one.”
It’s not the first time that the potentially illegal use of surveillance devices in Australian prisons has been revealed.
It was revealed in 2023 that listening devices had been unlawfully recording conversations in meeting rooms at Risdon Prison, in Tasmania, for 2 months in 2017.
The devices were installed with a warrant to record a conversation between a target and their lawyer but were left on and continued to record more than 700 meetings in the rooms for another 2 months.
These recordings were then transmitted to a police headquarters. The judge for the trial in question ruled that the recordings could not be used in court as the warrant used to obtain them was too broad. A subsequent investigation determined that none of these conversations were monitored or downloaded by police.
The Victorian Ombudsman in 2012 released a report on the death of Carl Williams at Barwon Prison, revealing that 10 listening devices were found in multiple units at the prison, which had been installed without a warrant.
These listening devices were inoperable, the report said.
