2024 Digital ID Rules, Accreditation Rules and Data Standards
The Law Council of Australia provided a submission to the Department of Finance about the Draft Digital ID Rules, Draft Digital ID (Accreditation) Rules, and Digital ID (Accreditation) Data Standards (Data Standards).
The Australian Government must represent the ‘gold standard’ in providing strong privacy and cybersecurity measures in implementing the Digital ID scheme. The Digital ID system must be suitably robust and will need to continually adapt to evolving risks. It must also be backed by strong legislative frameworks covering the collection, use, and disclosure of an individual’s biometric data, as well as other personal and sensitive information. In this context the Law Council contends that the foreshadowed reforms to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) should be progressed as a matter of priority.
Fundamental aspects of the Australian privacy regime have been subject to ongoing consideration by the Australian Government, following the Report of the review of the Privacy Act, released by the Attorney-General’s Department in February 2023.1 That Report contained 116 proposals for reform – a culmination of several years of thorough consultation and review. In September 2023, the Government formally responded to the Report, agreeing, or agreeing in principle, with the majority of the proposals.2
The Law Council has long supported holistic approaches to privacy and data law reform. There is a significant need for consistency and certainty of key concepts across Australia’s digital identity, privacy, and identity verification frameworks to promote, to the greatest possible extent, consistency and predictability across the relevant legislative frameworks.
The Law Council emphasises the need for strong protections for serious invasions of privacy to be consistent across the Privacy Act and Australia’s digital identity, privacy, and identity verification frameworks. This could include a private right of action under the Privacy Act for consumers affected by harms to their privacy to seek redress – noting that any such step will require careful consideration of the drafting to ensure that there are no unintended consequences, and that all causes of action created by, or affected by, the reform process can be considered in context.3
Read the full submission below.
1 Attorney-General’s Department, Privacy Act Review Report 2022 (February 2023).
2 Australian Government, Government Response to the Privacy Act Review Report (September 2023).
3 Law Council of Australia, Submission to Attorney-General’s Department, Privacy Act Review: Discussion Paper (27 January 2022) 5, 20-21.
Last Updated on 21/08/2024
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