A new Bill targeting social media platforms wants stronger penalties for user privacy breaches that could see companies fined 10% of their annual turnover.
The federal government has released an exposure draft for what it has labelled an Online Privacy Bill that it hopes will enhance online privacy protections for Australians through an expansion of the nation’s Privacy Act. “The goal of the Bill is to enhance privacy protections, particularly in the online sphere, without unduly impeding innovation within the digital economy,” the federal government wrote in the Bill’s explanatory paper [PDF]. Under current legislation, the federal government can only make two kinds of binding privacy codes, which are the Australian Privacy Principle code (APP) and a credit reporting code. The Bill is seeking to expand the Privacy Act to allow government to create a third code specifically for regulating three classes of organisations: Social media platforms, data brokers, and large online platforms. The proposed online privacy (OP) code seeks to make it mandatory for social media organisations to verify users’ age; obtain parental or guardian consent of a child who is under 16 years old before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information of that child; and prioritise acting in the best interests of children in their approach to handling data. These requirements are only for the social media class of organisations as the risk they pose to children are higher than those by data brokers or large online platforms, the government said. “The OP code will have stricter requirements for how social media platforms handle children’s personal information,” the government said. According to the exposure draft of the Bill, social media platforms that fall within the code’s scope include networks such as Facebook, dating apps such as Bumble, online content services such as OnlyFans, online forum sites such as Reddit, online messaging and videoconference platforms such as WhatsApp and Zoom, and gaming platforms that enable users to chat with each other.
