We at APF, together with our colleagues from Electronic Frontiers Australia, have numerous substantive concerns and issues concerning the proposed Privacy Amendment (Personal Data Protection) Bill 2026 (“Privacy Amendment Bill”), in particular its major omissions and the speed with which the government is trying to push this legislation through by what has the characteristics of stifling examination and public debate by providing limited time for drafting submissions and placing a 1,000 word cap on submissions. As such, both EFA and the APF feel that given the importance and criticality of getting privacy reform right, we feel compelled to ensure our detailed views are made available to the public and placed on the record in toto, notwithstanding the coercive control displayed in the submission guidelines.

The Australian Privacy Foundation Newsletter of 4 May 2024 APF Board members continue their efforts to influence policy in privacy-sensitive ways. The load continues to be high, and we need more contributors. That way we can deepen, but also to diversify, the insights that we bring to environmental scanning, evidence-gathering, analysis and the presentation of… Read More

Alysson Watson, Associate lecturer in journalism, University of Newcastle The family of Ash Good, one of the Bondi stabbing victims and the mother of the nine-month-baby who was also stabbed, issued a plea overnight for media to stop reproducing photos of Ash, her partner and their baby without consent. Good, 38, was an osteopath who… Read More

Margarita Vladimirova, PhD in Privacy Law and Facial Recognition Technology, Deakin University The morning started with a message from a friend: “I used your photos to train my local version of Midjourney. I hope you don’t mind”, followed up with generated pictures of me wearing a flirty steampunk costume. I did in fact mind. I… Read More

Katharine Kemp, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney Australian consumers don’t understand how companies – including data brokers – track, target and profile them. This is revealed in new research on consumer understanding of privacy terms, released by the non-profit Consumer Policy Research Centre and UNSW Sydney today. Our report also reveals… Read More

A suite of recent cybersecurity data breaches highlight an urgent need to overhaul how companies and government agencies handle our data. But these incidents pose particular risks to victim-survivors of domestic violence. The onus is on service providers – such as utilities, telcos, internet companies and government agencies – to ensure they don’t risk the safety of their most vulnerable customers by being careless with their data.