The Government has introduced the Combating the Financing of People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2011 into the House of Representatives.

If passed the Bill will amend the AML/CTF Act to:

• introduce a more comprehensive regulatory regime for the remittance sector;
• introduce measures to enhance within the Australian Intelligence Community information sharing of financial intelligence prepared by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC);
• allow businesses regulated under the AML/CTF Act to verify the identity of their customers by enabling reporting entities under the AML/CTF Act to use personal information held on an individual’s credit information file for the purposes of electronic verification of customer identity.

Providers of remittance networks and their affiliates, and independent remittance dealers will be required to be registered with AUSTRAC and to reapply for registration every 3 years.

Sections 18K and 18L of the Privacy Act will be amended to:

• permit a reporting entity to disclose personal information to a credit reporting agency for identity verification purposes with the express consent of the
  individual whose identity is being verified
• permit a credit reporting agency to conduct a matching process between personal information provided to it by a reporting entity and the personal
  information held on its own files and provide a report to the reporting entity on the outcome of the verification process
• require reporting entities to notify their customers of unsuccessful attempts to verify identity using credit reporting data
• require credit reporting agencies and reporting entities to retain information about verification requests for 7 years and to delete it at the end of that period
• require a credit reporting agency to keep information about verification requests separate from the individual’s credit information file
• create offences to address unauthorised access to, and disclosure of, verification information.

UPDATE 4 March: The Bill has been referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committees for an Inquiry.