The Greens have spent years pushing for these reforms, and it is genuinely good to see the government finally moving to a 'fair and reasonable test' to protect privacy and a modernised definition of personal information, and stronger data breach rules.
There are substantial gaps in the draft bill including the lack of action to prevent individuals using 'smart' glasses to collect and broadcast other people's personal information, especially as recording devices get smaller, smarter, and easier to wear without anyone else knowing.
Likewise the 'right to erasure' reform is critically important, but only applies to a tiny fraction of the companies collecting personal information about you, being limited to "large digital platforms" with more than $500 million revenue or 2.5 million monthly user threshold. If a company is able to create systems to capture your data it is reasonable to impose a requirement to delete that data on request.
The Government also hasn't touched the small business and employee records exemptions to privacy laws despite years of recommendations on this. With the absence of prescriptive rules preventing data harvesting and tracking of children, the Greens will be working to ensure these major privacy issues are addressed as the bill works its way through Parliament.
The short time frame and 1,000 word limit on submissions raises questions about how open the Government truly is to feedback on this proposal.
As stated by Greens Senator and Digital Rights Spokesperson David Shoebridge:
"This Bill is a modest step forward and goes some way to dragging Australia's Privacy laws into the 21st century.
"Australians have waited too long for a privacy law that reflects how data is actually collected and used in 2026.
"Replacing "about" with "relates to" in the definition of personal information closes a loophole companies have exploited for years to argue that inferred or derived data about someone doesn't count as their information.
"Treating AI-generated inferences as data collection is a useful step forward. For too long, a company could infer something about someone's identity, health, or behaviour from a device and claim it never actually collected anything.
"None of this changes the basic fact that the Privacy Act still only applies to businesses and agencies, not to the person standing next to you wearing a secret camera.
"Smart glasses that whisper a stranger's name, their job, and social media history into someone's ear, will still sit entirely outside Privacy laws with this Bill unless it is being done during work.
"We need to extend these laws to cover the use of so-called "smart glasses" regardless of whether or not the wearer is doing it for personal curiosity or as part of a business.
"There is still no requirement for a prominent light, a recognizable sound, or any outward sign that a pair of glasses is recording or searching online about people the wearer is seeing.
"A right to erasure that is limited only to platforms with $500 million or more in revenue, or 2.5 million monthly users, leaves out every small app and every emerging glasses startup building exactly this kind of surveillance product.
"Today's limited announcement from Labor makes it even more urgent to press for an import ban for all covert wearable recording technology.
"The employee records exemption from Privacy protections is untouched again, despite being flagged as a priority for reform since 2023. The Greens believe that workers deserve the same privacy protections as everyone else.
"The Greens will be pushing to strengthen these changes, with an open door to the government to work through positive amendments, and at the same time press ahead for an urgent 12 month import ban on covert recordable devices.
"Whatever happens, this entire privacy project is urgent, and while it should be subject to proper scrutiny, the law needs to be sorted this year, not this decade."
