New privacy laws are set to come into force in the near future after the Federal Parliament passed amendments to the Privacy Act.
These new laws will require the manda- tory reporting of certain data breaches for Australian Government agencies, busi- nesses and organisations which have an annual turnover of more than $3 million, health service providers, credit reporting agencies and any organisations holding personal tax file numbers.
A data breach would include such things as unauthorised access to or disclosure of information or where information is lost and a reasonable person would conclude that access or disclosure would be likely to result in serious harm to an individual to whom the information relates.
Penalties for such breach are $360,000 for individuals and $1.8 million for corpo- rations where there is a failure to notify of the breach to the individual or individuals concerned.
So those that retain data (or information) about individuals need to consider a review of employee’s access to information, the quality of your cyber security measures and the adequacy of privacy training to staff.
If we can assist in this or any other legal problem please contact Matthews Williams Solicitors.