The Senate amendments to the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Bill 2012 were agreed to by the House of Representatives on 29 November and the Bill is awaiting Royal Assent. (Background).

Although the reforms will likely commence in March 2014, on a date 15 months after Royal Assent, once the credit reporting provisions commence credit providers will be able to use credit information collected from the date of Royal Assent.

Civil penalties of up to 2,000 penalty units (equivalent to $340,000) are imposed for breaches of the credit reporting provisions in the Act.

If the offending entity is a body corporate the maximum penalty is 5 times the amount of the pecuniary penalty specified for the civil penalty provision (ie a maximum of $1.7million.)

You can see the Privacy Commissioner’s response here