The Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Bill 2012 was introduced in the House of Reps on Wed 23.5.2012. It amends the Privacy Act 1988 to implement the Government’s first stage response to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s report number 108, called “For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice”.
The Bill proposes to amend the Privacy Act to:
- create the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), a single set of privacy principles applying to both Commonwealth agencies and private sector organisations, which replace the Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) for the public sector and the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) for the private sector;
- introduce more comprehensive credit reporting with improved privacy protections, at the same time rewriting the credit reporting provisions to achieve greater consistency, simplicity and clarity and updating the provisions to more effectively address the significant developments in the operation of the credit reporting system since the provisions were first enacted in 1990;
- introduce new provisions on privacy codes and the credit reporting code (called the CR code), including powers for the Privacy Commissioner to develop and register codes in the public interest that are binding on specified agencies and organisations; and
- clarify the functions and powers of the Privacy Commissioner and improve the Commissioner’s ability to resolve complaints, recognise and encourage the use of external dispute resolution services, conduct investigations and promote compliance with privacy obligations.
Consequential amendments are made to other Acts, including the Acts Interpretation Act 1901, A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999, Crimes Act 1914, and Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993.
[LTN 98, 23/5]