New Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) come into force on 12 March 2014.
 
Clients of ADVOC member firms that have interests touching on "Australian" personal information (such as multi-national business operations, off-shoring / outsourcing arrangements, cloud computing arrangements and business sales and purchases generally) should give close consideration to the implications of the new APPs. For example, in some cases the consent of an individual is required to the cross border disclosure of the individual's sensitive information to a recipient outside Australia.
 
The Australian privacy law regulator has been given real teeth to enforce the APPs. The maximum penalty for a serious or repeated interference with privacy is now $340,000 for individuals and AU$1.7M for companies, in addition to exposure to other orders such as to pay damages and undertake potentially costly data remediation actions.
 
Consideration should be given by affected clients of ADVOC member firms to reviewing and updating data handling practices in light of the new APPs including in particular corporate privacy policies, personal information disclosure statements provided on collection of personal information (including as part of website terms and conditions, trading terms or credit application forms), services agreements between members of corporate groups and also agreements with service providers who hold or process personal information on behalf of clients.
 
For further information, please contact David Kennedy dsk@cbp.com.au or Alex Rhydderch adr@cbp.com.au