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HIGHER PENALTIES ON THE WAY
INCOMING CONSUMER DATA RIGHT
InMarch 2019, the Australian Government announced amendments to the Privacy Act including a suite of increased penalties. The amendments will: –– increase the maximum penalty of AUD 2.1 million for serious or repeated breaches to AUD 10 million, or 3x times the value of any benefit obtained through misuse of information, or 10% of a company’s annual domestic turnover, whichever is the greater; and –– provide the OAIC with new infringement notice powers for failure to cooperate with efforts to resolve minor breaches, including new penalties of up to AUD 63,000 for bodies corporate and AUD 12,600 for individuals. If introduced, these changes will apply to any organisation or government agency subject to the Privacy Act, including those operating within, and also potentially outside of, Australia. These changes are being backed by an AUD 25 million increase to the OAIC’s funding over the next 3 years. The potential for increased financial penalties (and a new willingness of the OAIC to publicise breaches where it sees fit) creates an additional risk to an entity’s reputation and its bottom line, should an incident occur. This added risk should drive entities to treat privacy risk as a significant whole of business issue.
On 29 March 2019, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ( ACCC ) published its draft rules for how the Consumer Data Right ( CDR ) will apply to the banking sector. The CDR is intended to provide Australians with greater control over their data and, while commencing in the banking sector, it will eventually apply across a range of sectors Customers will be empowered to obtain certain data held about them and also choose to share their data with certain third parties only for purposes they have authorised. This will enable consumers to compare between products and services and switch to more competitive service providers. The CDR is scheduled to be rolled out across the banking sector from July 2019, with industries such as energy and telecommunications to follow.
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