The Australian Government has announced two significant
proposed privacy reforms in recent weeks.
The first is the introduction of an exposure draft for a new
Online Privacy Bill1 (the Bill) - which would enable the
creation of new binding online privacy codes for social media and
other online platforms, as well as significantly increasing
penalties and enforcement measures for all organisations found in
breach of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)
("Privacy Act").
The second is the release of an extensive Discussion Paper by
the Attorney-General's Department as part of its ongoing review
into the Privacy Act, which follows a high level Issues Paper
published in October 2020.
The Discussion Paper proposes a number of significant reforms to
the Privacy Act, many of which are based on overseas regulations
such as the European General Data Protection Regulation
("GDPR") and the California Consumer
Privacy Act ("CCPA"). While amending
legislation is yet to be released, if
