Australian Government Tables Privacy Reforms

On 12 September 2024, the Australian government tabled a raft of Privacy and online safety reforms before Federal Parliament.

The Amendments include changes to the Privacy Act and are part of ongoing reviews and reforms to Australia’s privacy and online safety legislation.

This post covers a summary of the proposed reforms introduced to parliament.

Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024

The Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Bill seeks to introduce several amendments to the Australian Privacy Act.

Notably, the proposed reforms include:

• Introduction and enhancement of a regime to allow the Australian Information Commissioner (AIC) to develop and implement temporary and emergency Australian Privacy Principle (APP) Codes
• Specific development of a Children’s Online Privacy Code
• Amendments to the existing Notifiable Data Breach regime, including powers for the Minister to make declarations concerning eligible data breaches
• Amendments to civil penalty provisions relating to contravention of certain APPs and enhancing the powers of the Court to make orders around civil penalty provisions
• Power for the Minister to direct the AIC to conduct public inquiries
• Creation of a statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy, which will enable affected individuals to take civil actions against an entity for invasion of privacy or misuse of their personal information
• Creation of a criminal offence for ‘doxxing’ – the malicious publication of the identity or personal information of an individual