Privacy commissioner role separated once more, needs ‘double funding’ to do job well

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Making the privacy commissioner a separate role is a step in the right direction but will fail unless the government adequately funds the position, says a former privacy commissioner.

Attorney-general Mark Dreyfus announced the government has opened recruitment for a standalone privacy commissioner, a role previously held as a dual role by the Australian information commissioner Angelene Falk.

Falk will continue as an information commissioner and head of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Further, Toni Pirani will act as freedom of information commissioner from May 20, replacing Leo Hardiman who resigned, citing a lack of resources to manage the FOI workload.

Attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said, in light of the 2022 data breaches, the appointment of a standalone privacy commissioner would deal with “growing threats” to data security.

“The Albanese government takes privacy regulation seriously and has already acted to significantly increase penalties for companies which fail to take adequate care of customer data and give the Australian information commissioner improved and new powers,” Dreyfus said.

Former privacy commissioner Malcolm Crompton told The Mandarin that while the move was “long overdue”, the changes would not be effective without adequate resourcing.

“It needs doubling of its funding — which would still probably be not enough,” Crompton said.

“The reason for me saying that is it’s now demonstrable that personal information and data is one of the largest assets in the economy.

“And yet, it’s still being regulated on a tiddlywinks basis.”

Crompton added there was “no real need” to review the Privacy Act.

“It’ll have much more impact on people’s lives, a properly enforced Privacy Act, than all 116 recommendations being implemented and the privacy commissioner having no resources,” the former commissioner said.

The OAIC was always meant to have three separate commissioners: a privacy commissioner, an FOI commissioner, and an information commissioner.

The reduction of the OAIC hark back to an Abbottt-era attempt to abolish the office altogether, which was eventually defeated in the senate.

Prior to Falk taking on the dual role in 2018, Timothy Pilgrim was the first to be both information commissioner and privacy commissioner. Pilgrim — and then Falk when she took on the roles — were the sole commissioners at the OAIC for a period.

This changed when Hardiman (who has since left) came on board as FOI commissioner in March 2022, a position that had been vacant for seven years.

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