Government response to the Privacy Act Review Report
The Privacy Act Review originated out of recommendations from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s 2019 Digital platforms inquiry – final report.
We released the Privacy Act Review Report in February 2023. Following this, we undertook public consultation to inform the government response.
On 28 September 2023, the Australian Government released its response to the Privacy Act Review Report.
Stakeholder engagement
Consultation on proposed civil reforms to address the practice of doxxing closed on Thursday 28 March 2024. The department received 99 written submissions. The feedback received in this process will inform the department’s further advice to Government on privacy reforms.
In its response to the review, the Government commits to progressing work to enhance the privacy protections provided to individuals and ensure Australian businesses have clarity about what information is covered by the Privacy Act and how to best protect this information.
We have been conducting additional targeted consultations to inform the further development of various reforms which are ‘agreed in-principle’.
To date these consultations have mainly focused on: small business privacy reforms, private sector employee privacy reforms and privacy reforms affecting journalism and research.
We have also been conducting targeted consultation to support the development of a detailed impact analysis, designed to ensure the range of benefits and economic costs of the reforms are fully understood. As part of this work, a small number of representatives of a range of stakeholder groups, including from industry and civil society, were invited to participate in workshops and to provide feedback on costs and benefits of proposed privacy reforms.
There may be opportunities to participate in further discussions on some other areas of privacy reforms. If you would like to register your interest in being involved in discussions on a particular issue please email privacyactreview@ag.gov.au.