Peter A Clarke

The Privacy Act 1988 was amended by the the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 (Privacy Amendment Act).  The changes commenced on 12 March 2014. The reforms:

• created a single set of Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) applying to both Australian Government agencies and the private sector. These principles replaced the Information Privacy Principles and National Privacy Principles.
• introduced more comprehensive credit reporting for consumer credit.
• strengthened the functions and powers of the Australian Information Commissioner to resolve complaints, use external dispute resolution services, conduct investigations and promote compliance
• created new provisions on privacy codes and the credit reporting code, including codes that are binding on specified agencies and organisations.

For those privacy practitioners the general level of compliance with the amendments to the Privacy Act has been poor.

A recent example that came to my attention was Read the rest of this entry »

Revenge porn is one of the stories of 2015 although it has been a phenomena for a number of years now.  With technological improvement, in particular smart devices become more sophisticated together with the sharing imperative that many from Gen X down seem to live by the abuse of intimate photographs and videos has been on the increase.  Or at least appears to have.  There has been Read the rest of this entry »

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has a long track record of taking enforcement action against companies that make misleading statements about privacy protections, data security, compliance with the recently demolished Safe Harbour Agreement and other privacy related matters.

On Monday, US time, Oracle was the latest to enter into a consent orders arising out of claims that it deceived consumers about the security provided in updates to Java.  The security problems were Read the rest of this entry »

The regulation of all drones in the United States is almost a reality.  To date the patchwork of regulations has either concentrated on commercially operated drones or involved State based restrictions on the less savoury and responsible use of drones.  In the last 12 months the previously laconic approach Read the rest of this entry »

The Fairfax press has highlighted what has long been known by privacy advocates, the privacy intrusive potential of drones and the lack of regulation in Australia, in Privacy concerns mount as drones take to the skies.

That is not to say there has been no attempt at trying to regulate.  As with Read the rest of this entry »

I posted August 2015 (found here) on the significant win by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) in the Court of Appeal on its powers to enforce data security in Federal Trade Commission v Wyndham Worldwide Corporation & ors.  The result was a milestone Read the rest of this entry »

The New Zealand 60 minutes has been the subject of an adverse finding by the Broadcasting Authority in NS and SKY Network Television Ltd – 2015-032.

FACTS

On 18 May 2015, and 21 May 2015,  60 Minutes featured  Read the rest of this entry »

A modern phenomena of data storage has been the ever growing volume of personal information kept under the control of organisations and agencies.  Slack controls Read the rest of this entry »

At the annual IaapANZ Summit held yesterday (which I attended) the Privacy Commissioner made his keynote annual speech. Commissioner Pilgrim does provide something of an overview of where the Office has been going and will be going for the next year.  The problem generally is that Read the rest of this entry »

Data breaches are depressingly regular and sometimes, rarely, unavoidable.  Hence the need to have a response plan.  In the article Taxpayer records exposed by serious ATO, myGov security flaw the problem is not so much the breach, which was bad enough but the woeful response by government when the defect is detected.  The phenomenam of extreme suspicion if not hostility by Government or big organisation to white hat hackers and those IT individuals who pick flaws in security has been Read the rest of this entry »