Before you read
This site is NOT legal advice, and using it creates no lawyer and client relationship. It is a set of findings, checked against published sources and dated, that may help software developers and other individuals. For a decision that matters, ask a qualified lawyer in the country concerned.
Australia
Sources last checked:
The Privacy Act 1988 and its Australian Privacy Principles govern how government agencies and organisations with an annual turnover of $3 million or more handle personal information.1 The regulator is the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the OAIC.
The principles
There are 13 Australian Privacy Principles. Among other things, they require a clear privacy policy, telling people when their information is collected, and letting people stay anonymous where possible.2
Your rights
You generally have a right to access your personal information. An agency must respond within 30 days; for an organisation, 30 days is treated as a reasonable period.3
When data is breached
Under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, an organisation must tell the people affected and the OAIC when a breach is likely to result in serious harm.4
Recent reforms
The law passed in November 2024 added a right to sue for serious invasions of privacy, new tiers of civil penalties, and a requirement that privacy policies describe substantially automated decisions that significantly affect people.5
A Children’s Online Privacy Code is due to be registered by 10 December 2026.6
Source note: the Act’s own text could not be read, so this section relies on the regulator and maximum penalties and the dates individual reforms took effect are left out.