OAIC regulatory priorities

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s (OAIC’s) purpose is to promote and uphold privacy and information access rights. Our vision is to increase public trust and confidence in the protection of personal information and access to government-held information. The OAIC recognises that community confidence and trust will contribute to a healthy democracy and positively impact the economy.

Decisions to undertake regulatory action are taken in accordance with the OAIC’s regulatory approach. These policies require consideration of a range of factors including the objects of the relevant statute and the risks and impact of non-compliance.

The OAIC has considered the relevant factors in the identification of the following regulatory priorities for 2025–26, to ensure that the OAIC’s resources are focused on the prevention of privacy harm and upholding the community’s access to information rights in the areas of greatest impact and concern.

The OAIC's four areas for regulatory focus in 2025–26 are:

Rebalancing power and information asymmetries

The OAIC will focus on sectors and technologies that compromise rights and create power and information imbalances including:

• the rental and property, credit reporting and data brokerage, sectors
• advertising technology (Ad tech) such as pixel tracking
• practices that erode information access and privacy rights in the application of artificial intelligence
• excessive collection and retention of personal information
• systemic failures to enable timely access to government information

Rights preservation in new and emerging technologies

The OAIC will protect and uphold privacy and information access rights when dealing with new and emerging technologies with high impact, including:

• Facial recognition technology and forms of biometric scanning
• new surveillance technologies such as location data tracking in apps, cars and other devices
• the preservation of both privacy and information access rights in government use of artificial intelligence and automated decision making.

Strengthening the information governance of the Australian Public Service

The OAIC will strengthen information governance and integrity in the Australian Public Service through:

• highlighting areas where information handling practices are inadequate and data is not managed appropriately through its life cycle, including how requests for access under the FOI Act and Privacy Acts are managed.
• providing guidance to elevate administrative decision-making in the Australian Public Sector
• monitoring the use of messaging apps by government agencies
• Identifying government integrity risks arising from information management practices that impact on trust in government, including poor disclosure practices.

Ensuring timely access to government information

The OAIC will support the timely release of government information in line with the objects of the Freedom of Information Act by:

• progressing complaint investigations or monitoring activities and using data to highlight systemic underperformance by individual agencies, particularly in relation to agencies’ refusal rates, compliance with statutory timeframes, disclosure log practices and information publication scheme compliance.