On 28 February 2020, the Office of the Australian Information
Commissioner (OAIC) released its Notifiable Data
Breaches Report for July to December 2019, which shows that
notifications under the notifiable data breaches
(NDB) scheme of the Privacy Act increased
17% compared to the first half of 2019.
In this Limelight, we assess key trends from the
report, which remain broadly consistent from previous periods.
While it is not surprising that the number of data breaches
notified continues to increase, the relative volume of
notifications is still well behind other parts of the world.
However, proposed reforms to the Privacy Act, amongst
other things, may go some way into rectifying the discrepancy.
