Australia: Closed consultation on Attorney General Privacy Act Review Report including cross-border data transfer regulation

On 31 March 2023, the Australian Attorney General (AG) closed its consultation on the Privacy Act Review Report. The report follows the October 2021 Discussion Paper and the 2020 Issues Paper on the same matter. The Report contains a series of proposals for the reform of the Privacy Act including a proposal to introduce a mechanism, similar to the GDPR, to assess whether other countries and certification schemes provide substantially similar protection countries and certification schemes as provided by Australian regulations. In addition, there is a proposal to introduce standard contractual clauses containing provisions on how an overseas recipient of personal information is expected to handle that information. Finally, the reform would increase notification requirements around cross-border data transfers by requiring APP entities to specify in their collection notices under APP 5 the types of personal information that may be disclosed to overseas recipients.