CHOICE welcomes progress towards privacy reforms
CHOICE welcomes the Attorney General Michelle Rowland’s announcement today that the government is progressing draft legislation to strengthen Australia’s privacy laws.
Quotes attributable to Andy Kelly, Director of Consumer Impact at CHOICE:
“Today’s announcement is much needed progress towards modernising Australia’s privacy framework. We look forward to working with the government to ensure these reforms protect consumers from new and emerging risks and harms in the digital age.”
“Implementing the right legislation will be crucial in ensuring that Australians are protected by a Privacy Act fit for the 21st century. We particularly welcome proposals to require businesses to ensure that their use and collection of personal information is fair and reasonable to help bring protections in line with consumer expectations.”
“Our latest national research found that less than 1 in 10 Australians trust that companies are using their personal data responsibly and in their interests. Setting expectations for businesses to uphold fair, transparent and safe data use is a crucial step towards building trust and giving people meaningful control over their information.”
“Consistency will be key in getting these landmark reforms right. Whether it’s a supermarket, real estate agent or a social media site, consumers expect the same protections across all businesses regardless of size. Limiting protections such as the right to request deletion of your personal information to large digital platforms only would continue to place many consumers at risk of devastating data breaches, like we saw with Latitude in 2023, where customer records from as far back as 2005 were breached.”
“CHOICE continues to call on the Federal Government to implement other priority reforms from the Privacy Act review, including removing the small business exemption to ensure privacy protections are fair and consistent regardless of the size of a business.”
Editor’s notes:
CHOICE Consumer Pulse June 2026 is based on an online survey designed and analysed by CHOICE. n= 1,006 Australian households responded to the survey with quotas applied to ensure coverage across all age groups, genders and locations in each state and territory across metropolitan and regional areas. The data was weighted to ensure it is representative of the Australian population based on the 2021 ABS Census data. Fieldwork was conducted in June, 2026.
