The well-considered proposals put forward in the Attorney General’s Department’s Privacy Act Review Discussion Paper present a sound basis for advancing the case of privacy reform in Australia, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) said.In its response to the Discussion Paper, the OAIC has made detailed recommendations which ...

Download our 2021 highlights infographicLong text descriptionIn 2021 the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner worked to increase public trust and confidence in the protection of personal information and access to government-held information.Encourage and support proactive release of government information:Developed FOI capabilities through new resources, guidelines, reports and information sessionsReleased ...

Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk has determined that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) failed to comply with its privacy obligations in using the Clearview AI facial recognition tool.Commissioner Falk found the AFP failed to complete a privacy impact assessment (PIA) before using the tool, in breach of ...

An audit of the big four banks has found they are generally handling consumer data under the Consumer Data Right in an open and transparent way with good privacy practices in place.As co-regulator of the Consumer Data Right (CDR) system, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) is proactively ...

3 November 2021The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) opened a joint investigation into the personal information handling practices of Clearview AI Inc in July 2020.The investigation focused on the company’s use of data scraped from the internet and the use of ...

Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk has found that Clearview AI, Inc. breached Australians’ privacy by scraping their biometric information from the web and disclosing it through a facial recognition tool.The determination follows a joint investigation by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and the UK’s ...

What we didIn July 2020, six data protection and privacy authorities from Australia, Canada, Gibraltar, Hong Kong SAR, China, Switzerland and the United Kingdom jointly signed an open letter to video teleconferencing (VTC) companies. The letter highlighted concerns about whether privacy safeguards were keeping pace with the rapid increase in ...

Higher penalties to help protect Australians’ privacyHigher penalties outlined in draft legislation released by the Australian Government today will align privacy and consumer law penalties and help address serious privacy risks to the community, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) said.Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk ...