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Data Disclosure Laws in Australia
I’m interested to see how proposed changes to the Australian Privacy Act are going to look:
The Federal Government is set to introduce data disclosure laws in Australia as early as 2008.
The push for data disclosure laws in Australia is part of a review of the Privacy Act being undertaken by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) which began early this year.
A discussion paper, recommending the introduction of these laws which would force organizations to notify customers of security breaches…
(From Computerworld Australia)
I have to agree with some of the comments in the article, especially in regards to it being a good thing for customers if businesses have to disclose information breaches. But whether it’s “good business to notify customers”, I’m not entirely sure. If your business suffered an information breach I can’t imagine that disclosing that to your customers would be good for business.
Unless of course that due to stricter disclosure laws businesses have to tighten up their controls, which in turn provides better services to customers. But it’s hard to see how having to increase, check and audit controls would simply occur easily and for nothing. So how does this happen? Well the businesses have to employ more security folk and spend more money on controls. And who do you think will have to pay for this service? My guess is that this will either cut profits or maybe we’ll see customers wear the costs.
Regardless of the “how”, I think the overall “why” of this law is definitely a good thing. The article alludes to how these types of incidents may be occurring all the time without anyone knowing. This thought worries me. I’m all for transparency.
Posted by Christian 
7 August 2007
One Response to “Data Disclosure Laws in Australia”
Choo Choo Choose Me Says:
August 15th, 2007at
9:38 pm
Hey,
If you read the news you will see that the Democrats (specifically Natasha Stott-Despoia) plan to introduce an ammendment to bring forward so called ‘Disclosure’ to the current privacy act.
“The Privacy (Data Security Breach Notification) Amendment Bill 2007, which would obligate a corporation or government agency to inform individuals affected by any release of personal and financial data to unauthorised parties.” ZDNET
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Democrats-to-introduce-data-disclosure-bill/0,130061744,339281168,00.htm
This would bring us in-line with many American states but out of line of the EU which in my humble opinion has until recently had stronger privacy laws that both Australia and the US. The culture of privacy is something our European friends have which I think is lacking in both Australia and currently the US.
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