As part of the introduction of a metadata retention scheme the Government earlier this year agreed that legislation would be introduced requiring persons to be notified if there was unauthorised access to, or an unauthorised disclosure of, their personal information that was being held by a Federal Government agency or private sector organisation. The Attorney-General has now indicated that the Bill will now be introduced before the end of 2015.

The Attorney-General answered a question in the Senate on 14 October 2015 from Senator Ludlam:

“Senator LUDLAM: Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. In March of this year, during negotiations and extended debate over the mandatory data retention legislation, the government committed to have mandatory data breach laws in place before the end of this year, whereby anybody who loses control of your private information would at least be obliged to notify you that that had happened. With only 14½ sitting days left on the parliamentary calendar, where is this bill?

Senator BRANDIS: It is still the government’s intention to legislate for a mandatory data breach scheme before the end of this year.”

Senator Brandis corrected the record at the end of Senate question time to say data breach legislation would only be introduced to Parliament before the end of this year.