The Government has released the Productivity Commission’s final report into Data Availability and Use. Background.
The key recommendation is for a consumer’s Comprehensive Right to access and use digital data.
The Commission recommended that:
“Consumer data must be provided on request to consumers or directly to a designated third party in order to exercise a number of rights, summarised as the Comprehensive Right to access and use digital data. This Comprehensive Right would enable consumers to:
• share in perpetuity joint access to and use of their consumer data with the data holder;
• receive a copy of their consumer data;
• request edits or corrections to it for reasons of accuracy;
• be informed of the trade or other disclosure of consumer data to third parties;
• direct data holders to transfer data in machine-readable form, either to the individual or to a nominated third party.
Where a transfer is requested outside of an industry (such as from a medical service provider to an insurance provider) and the agreed scope of consumer data is different in the source industry and the destination industry, the scope that applies would be that of the data sender.”
While the report will affect every sector in the Australian economy, the Government’s initial response focuses on financial services.
The Government will legislate a mandatory comprehensive credit reporting regime if credit providers are not reporting at least 40 per cent of their data by the end of 2017.
The objective is that credit markets will operate more efficiently and effectively if credit providers have access to sufficient and reliable data about borrowers to inform decisions about who to lend to and on what terms.
The Government has also announced that Treasury will undertake an independent review into the most appropriate implementation model for an open banking regime.
An open banking regime would require the banking sector to share product and customer data when requested by the customer. The review will consider appropriate privacy and consumer protections.
