In Australia, the penalties for “repeated and serious” privacy violations need to be significantly increased. Attorney General Mark Dreyfus announced this over the weekend. Instead of the previously possible maximum fine of AU $ 2.2 million (€ 1.43 million), in the future up to AU $ 50 million (€ 32.2 million), three times the benefit gained from misuse of the data or 30% of the company’s adjusted sales over the affected period may be possible, whichever is higher. The PA quoted the minister as saying companies could face penalties of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Response to data leaks
With The new Australian government is reacting to the plan to a series of sometimes severe data leaks in recent weeks. They would prove that existing safeguards weren’t enough, writes Dreyfus. It is not enough that the penalties imposed for such data leaks are seen simply as a consequence of business sense. Businesses should suffer the financial consequences and businesses should be pushed to protect Australians’ data. Additionally, recent incidents have raised concerns in the government that the economy is storing too much user data for too long in hopes of monetizing it eventually. The law is expected to come out by the end of the year writes AP.
Just a few weeks ago it became known that the personal data of more than 10 million customers had been intercepted at the Australian telecommunications provider Optus. This has put more than a third of the population at risk of identity theft or fraud, the AP said. Subsequently, sensitive health data was stolen from Medibank health insurance. The company was threatened that particularly important customers would be contacted and confronted with their information. Presumably that’s around 200 gigabytes of data. Medibank has now admitted that the attackers have been shown to have data on at least 100 people.
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