By Devanshi Patel, Law Graduate, and Michael Finney,
Director, Bennett & Philp Lawyers
As we have reported previously, the Privacy and Other
Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 (Cth) (now known as the
Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 (Cth)
(Privacy Amendment Act) after receiving Royal
Assent on 10 December 2024) sought to implement the first tranche
of sweeping Australia's privacy reforms, which were designed to
enhance and strengthen privacy laws, including an effort to bring
the Australian laws more into line with the likes of the European
GDPR.
Although the Privacy Amendment Act did not implement many of the
more substantive proposals from an individual rights perspective,
it did make material changes to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)
(Privacy Act) penalties regime and the breadth of
orders that can be made by the Federal Court under the Privacy Act.
The Act introduced a new tiered civil penalty process with
medium-level and low-level penalties
