Consumer Data Right

Annual report highlights ’s work to uphold privacy and information access rights

Retrieved on: 
Sunday, October 29, 2023
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Releasing the OAIC’s annual report for 2022–23, Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk said the volatile events of the financial year had underscored the need for the regulator to have the right foundations in place to promote and protect information access and privacy rights.

Key Points: 
  • Releasing the OAIC’s annual report for 2022–23, Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk said the volatile events of the financial year had underscored the need for the regulator to have the right foundations in place to promote and protect information access and privacy rights.
  • “Throughout the year, the OAIC has continued to develop and advocate for these foundations to support a proportionate and proactive approach to regulation.
  • This includes appropriate laws, resources, capability – the right people with the right tools – effective engagement with risk, appropriate governance and, importantly, collaboration,” Commissioner Falk said.
  • Investigations were also opened into the personal information handling practices of retailers Bunnings and Kmart, focusing on the companies’ use of facial recognition technology.
  • “The OAIC has a strong foundation on which to build, and it will move from strength to strength with the leadership of 3 expert commissioners.”
    Read the
    OAIC Annual report 2022–23.

Key 2022–23 statistics

Footnotes


[1] During 2022-23, the OAIC ceased classifying certain communications about FOI as ‘enquiries’ where these are more complex, or require a specific response, and are therefore dealt with by the FOI Branch instead of the OAIC’s enquiries team. This has reduced the numbers of FOI enquiries reported this financial year.

Like plumbing did for water, Australia's 'consumer data right' could make your personal data safer and easier to share

Retrieved on: 
Monday, September 18, 2023
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By that it meant that the world’s biggest and most profitable companies no longer worked with oil, as they had throughout the 20th century, but with data.

Key Points: 
  • By that it meant that the world’s biggest and most profitable companies no longer worked with oil, as they had throughout the 20th century, but with data.
  • By 2022, three of the world’s five most profitable companies specialised in data – Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet.
  • But before that, our cities were shaped by plumbing, making it more accurate to say that data is the new water.

Like water, data flows through pipes

    • We see Australia’s little-known new Consumer Data Right in the same way, as a foundation on which the future will be built.
    • A landmark Productivity Commission report in 2017 made Australia a global leader in planning to regulate data.
    • The resulting 2019 Consumer Data Right mimics plumbing in the way it facilitates flows and removes effluent.

What does the Consumer Data Right do?

    • Concern for the quality and integrity of the transported data is built into the system’s architecture: data holders and accredited data recipients have to ensure the data they transfer is “accurate, up to date and complete”.
    • Data holders have to ask consumers to authorise disclosures of their data and keep records and explanations of such authorisations.

Making data breaches less likely

    • Importantly, when an accredited data recipient no longer needs consumer data (and is not required to retain it for another reason) the recipient has to either destroy or de-identify it.
    • Had Optus been accredited under the consumer data right before exposing the data of as many as 10 million current and former customers last year, in what has been labelled “the worst data breach in Australia’s history”, it would most likely have been found to be in breach of its obligations by holding on to data it no longer needed.
    • Running parallel to the consumer data right for firms that haven’t applied for accreditation are the old practices.

Old pipes are unsafe

    • Read more:
      Why the class action against Optus could be Australia's biggest

      The sooner these old practices are replaced with practices governed by the consumer data right, the stronger Australia’s data economy will become.

    • What we find strange about the changes taking part in Australia is that overseas they are regarded as pioneering.
    • It is time for Australian businesses to embrace what’s coming and start developing uses for the consumer data right that will appeal to customers.

Senate estimates opening statement May 2023

Retrieved on: 
Saturday, May 27, 2023
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welcomes additional Budget funding

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
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9 May 2023

Key Points: 
  • 9 May 2023
    The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) welcomes additional funding announced in the 2023–24 Federal Budget to protect Australians’ privacy as the office returns to the three-Commissioner model: the Australian Information Commissioner (as agency head), Privacy Commissioner and Freedom of Information Commissioner.
  • The OAIC will receive an extra $17.8 million in the 2023–24 financial year.
  • “The increased funding to support the OAIC’s regulation across the Australian economy will send a strong message that protection of Australians’ personal information must be a priority for business and government agencies,” Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk said.
  • “This funding is an important addition to bolster the OAIC’s capacity to regulate in line with community expectations into the future.”

welcomes additional Budget funding

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, March 30, 2023
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26 October 2022

Key Points: 
  • 26 October 2022
    The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) welcomes funding announced in the October 2022-23 Federal Budget to assist its privacy investigations.
  • The OAIC has been allocated $5.5 million over two years from 2022-23 to support its response to the Optus incident.
  • Funding announced in the March 2022 budget has also been confirmed*.
  • The budget also included additional funding of $3.6 million provided over 4 years, and $1.1 million per year ongoing for the OAIC to support implementation of the Australian Government's response to the Inquiry into the Future Directions for the Consumer Data Right.

The KWM Digital Future Summit

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, March 30, 2023
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