The Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Bill 2012 was passed by the Senate on Tue 27.11.2012, with 40 Government amendments and now goes back to the House of Reps for consideration of those amendments.
The Bill seeks to amend 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”.
- Among other things, it seeks to tighten the rules regarding the sending of personal information outside Australia.
- It proposes to amend the Privacy Act to, among other things, create some 13 Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), a single set of privacy principles applying to both Commonwealth agencies and private sector organisations, which would replace the current Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) for the public sector and the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) for the private sector. Several of the Principles concern how entities deal with personal information and government related identifiers, including principles about the use and disclosure (including cross-border/offshore disclosure) of personal information.
[LTN 231, 28/11]
Lower House accepts Senate amendments
The House of Reps on Thur 29.11.2012, accepted the 40 Government amendments and 1 Greens amendment made by the Senate on 27 Nov 2012 to the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Bill 2012 and the Bill effectively awaits Royal Assent.
The Government amendments were made to items in Schedules 1, 2 and 4 of the Bill. A number of these amendments respond to the recommendations of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee’s report into the Bill which was tabled on 26 September 2012. Also, Clause 2 of the Bill was amended to extend the commencement period of the Bill to 15 months after Royal Assent.
The Greens amendment concerned consumer credit defaults and the threshold level – the amendment changes that level from $100 to $150. The Bill now provides that default information about an individual is information about a payment that the individual is overdue in making in relation to consumer credit that has been provided by a credit provider to the individual if, among other things, the amount of the overdue payment is equal to or more than $150.
[LTN 232, 29/11]