Last week, the Australian Parliament passed the Privacy and other Legislation Amendment Bill, which amends the Amends the Privacy Act 1988 and seven other Acts to update Australia’s privacy law. This includes reform that HTI has been advocating for since its inception.
The new Act introduces most significantly a statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy. This will provide a remedy for people who have suffered a serious breach of their privacy, in situations where our current law doesn’t provide adequate protection.
HTI Co-Director Prof Edward Santow said, “In an earlier public consultation, Australians expressed real, practical concerns about privacy. These concerns were grounded in their actual experience - and some of the stories we heard were very distressing.
“The most common thing we heard from the community was: ‘I'm worried that my personal information can be used against me.’ This can happen, for example, when a person reveals highly personal information about their former partner, or when a company engages in highly-intrusive surveillance.
“These changes to the Privacy Act start to address these sorts of problems.
This is an important reform, though the new law contains only about 20 per cent of what’s needed to modernise our privacy protections, so there’s lots more to do. - Prof Edward Santow, HTI Co-Director
Professor Santow said that this was an important milestone that has come about from the work of many advocates over many years.
“I particularly acknowledge the leadership of Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus for working across the Parliament to get this Bill passed, and Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind for providing effective and principled advice to the Government.
“I also want to pay tribute to my HTI colleagues Sophie Farthing, Sarah Sacher, Lauren Perry, Nicholas Davis, and many others, who have done important work on this reform.”