Snapshot
- The Commonwealth Government has revealed its response to proposed reforms to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
- A majority of proposals have been ‘agreed’ or ‘agreed-in-principle’ to, but it is expected that proposals ‘agreed-in-principle’ may take longer to make their way into law.
- The Government’s response to small business exemptions, the fair and reasonable test, individual rights and direct marketing are generating significant discussion.
After great anticipation, the Federal Government has responded to proposed reforms to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (‘Privacy Act’). The commitment to consideration of reforms follows the Attorney General’s Department Privacy Act Review Report (‘Review Report’), which proposed over 100 different reforms.
The modernisation of the Privacy Act has received significant attention across the country as many organisations provided substantive feedback to the review, including the Australian Human Rights Commission (‘Commission’) who highlighted key human rights concerns in their submission.
The proposed reforms focus on five key areas:
- bringing the Privacy Act into the digital age;
- uplifting protections;
- increasing clarity and simplicity for entities and individuals;
- improving control and transparency for individuals over their personal information; and
- strengthening enforcement (‘Government Response Privacy Act Review’ (2023) 3).
