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ARTICLE · 09 FEBRUARY 2016

Data breaches ... A board's biggest fear just got worse

Norton Rose Fulbright Australia
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The draft Privacy Amendment (Notification of Serious Data Breaches) Bill 2015 is set to take this fear to a new level.

AustraliaPrivacy
Nick Abrahams
Nick Abrahams
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Data breaches are becoming as lucrative as the global drug trade. Massive data breaches are almost a daily occurrence. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse reports that in the first eight months of 2015 there were 120 million personal records breached globally. This is up from 70 million for the full year of 2014.

Against this backdrop, a recent survey of boards by North Carolina University found that cyber breach was in the top three risks concerning directors. Anecdotally we know the same is true of boards in Australia.

The draft Privacy Amendment (Notification of Serious Data Breaches) Bill 2015 is set to take this fear to a whole new level. The recently released Bill will require notifications to be sent to individuals whose personal information may have been exposed in a data breach.

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