Australian amendments to Privacy Act

An interesting article about amendments to Australia's Privacy Act is discussed on the UK's The Guardian website today. It highlights some of the issues we discussed in class, specifically personal awareness of data collection, notification of information being transported overseas, and an individual's right to know what is being collected. I was intrigued particularly with the idea that an individual would have the right to request access to a private company that had gathered information on them, to see both the quantity of data and the purpose of its collection. The idea of knowing what type of information Google or Facebook might have acquired as linked directly to you, or more concerning to me what exactly that information is used for, or who else then gains access to the information, strikes a chord with our discussion of balance between consumer knowledge and service providers' hidden collection of personal data. The article also reminds us that despite improvements to the legislation, there remains both vague terms for companies to work with, and a difficulty with enforcement.