Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus is this year expected to legislate changes to the decades-old Privacy Act, after a review by his department recommended 116 changes to better protect the personal information of Australians.
One of Australia’s largest banks has urged the federal government to balance protecting people’s personal data with detecting and stamping out organised crime when it unveils sweeping reforms to privacy laws.
“We’re dealing with a combatant that has the access to the best technologies; faster than we can probably embrace it,” Jevtovic told this masthead. “They are moralless, lawless, jurisdictionless. So, there’s our starting point, and here we are trying to combat them within the laws we have, with the finite resources we have, and of course, endeavouring to protect our way of life.
“Organised crime has the ability to buy data that can tell them who they are, and there’s the risk that we need to continuously protect,” he said.“We need to continue to do everything we can to safeguard data. Data is an answer to many of the challenges we face in the world today. So, it’s always about balance. How do we get that balance right?”
Almost two years on, NAB has completed about three-quarters of its remedial action plan, which involved upgrading its systems to comply with anti-money laundering and counterterrorism legislation.