01/03/2013

A major expansion of Australia’s privacy law will shortly affect how we deal with one another on social media.

The internet, facebook, twitter and other common forms of communication are highly popular nowadays. These forms of communication are reaching into more and more areas of our lives. Businesses and others have the technology to obtain detailed information about our lives, often whether we like it or not. Of course, many people, including some known under the label “celebrities”, willingly and happily disclose information about themselves.

In such a world, it is becoming more and more important that our information, whether personal, health, financial or relating to our business or employment, is protected from unlawful disclosure and use.

One way in which the Commonwealth Government has tried to regulate how personal information about us as individuals is obtained, kept and used is under the Privacy Act 1988 (Commonwealth).

The Commonwealth Government has now passed legislation to amend the Privacy Act called the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 (“Amendment Act”). The Amendment Act was finally passed in December 2012 and comes into force on 12 March 2014. However, just because the Amendment Act doesn’t come into force for 11 months doesn’t mean businesses can ignore it!

One significant reason why businesses can’t ignore the Amendment Act is that, unlike the current Privacy Act, it covers all private sector businesses including small businesses.  

Other important features of the Amendment Act are:  
 

• The current National Privacy Principles (or NPPs) which cover the private sector and the Information Privacy Principles (or IPPs) which cover the public sector will be replaced by the Australian Privacy Principles or APPs which will cover both public and private sectors.
   
• There are 13 APPs and a number are different from the current principles. These include:

APP 1 which covers open and transparent management of personal information

APP 7 which covers the use and disclosure of personal information for direct marketing, and

APP 8 on cross- border disclosure of personal information

• There will be a significant toughening of policing of APPs. Under the NPPs, the power of the Privacy Commissioner was akin to being hit once with a wet lettuce leaf. Under the Amendment Act, the Commissioner will have powers to:

require enforceable undertakings not to continue breaches (the ACCC has these types of powers!)

seek civil penalties for serious or repeated breaches of privacy, and

onduct assessments of privacy performance by businesses.

• Credit reporting is one area of privacy which is the subject of many disputes and debates. While a full discussion on credit reporting is beyond this article, under the Amendment Act, there will be:

more comprehensive reporting about an individual’s current credit commitments and their repayment  history over the previous two years

a simplified process for correction of records and complaints

prohibition on reporting defaults under $150

provisions to allow individuals to freeze access to their credit related information in cases of suspected identity theft or fraud, and

new civil penalties for breaches of some credit reporting provisions.

   
If you run a small business you are going to need to factor in these new laws into your business.  Over the coming months we will be developing and promoting our Small Business Privacy Law kit to help small business deal with their new obligations.