From 10 June 2025, Australian privacy law has taken a major step forward with the introduction of the statutory tort of invasions of privacy. This reform gives individuals new and direct rights to take legal action in court—something previously unavailable under the privacy regime. Why This Reform Matters Until now, individuals who believed their privacy [...]
Breach of confidence is a common cause of action in matters involving intrusion of privacy. The doctrine is not statute-based but arises from common law (i.e. judge-made law) and equity. To establish a claim for breach of confidence, based on the principles in Coco v A N Clark (Engineers) Ltd [1968] FSR 415, a plaintiff [...]
The Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) require an APP entity (essentially not a small business) to have a clearly expressed and up-to-date privacy policy (APP privacy policy) describing how it manages personal information. The APP privacy policy must be based on and reflect the practices, procedures and systems that the APP entity has implemented to ensure [...]
A data breach could occur to any business holding personal information at any time. It is unlikely that unauthorised access will occur at a convenient time! It is important that you have data breach policies in place within your business and your employees and any other internal or external person that stores or deals with personal information need to be [...]
