Chums, you know what sucks? Waking up to all your data being stolen. Knowing that your credit card info, your driver’s licence, and your home address might be floating in the sea of the dark web.
What’s worse, it’s not like you weren’t careful with these deets. It’s not like you posted it to Insta or as a TikTok reel. However, you gave it to a giga corporation. You did this in order to purchase something important. And then that company betrayed your trust. They weren’t careful enough with your data.
However, because this happened again and again and again, the Federal Government is stepping in. They are creating a Privacy Commissioner. This commissioner will make sure that Australia’s governmental agencies and large private organisations are following our laws when handling our private info.
As Mark Dreyfus, Attorney-General of Australia, said, “The Albanese Government will appoint a standalone Privacy Commissioner to deal with the growing threats to data security and the increasing volume and complexity of privacy issues. Australians rightly expect their privacy regulator to have the resources and powers to meet the ongoing challenges of the digital age and protect their personal information.”
“The large-scale data breaches of 2022 were distressing for millions of Australians, with sensitive personal information being exposed to the risk of identity fraud and scams.”
Over the past few years, Australia has been the victim of many a cyber attack. In September of 2022, Optus took a beating. They have since confirmed that the personal info of 9.8 million customers was snatched. Meanwhile, in October of 2022, Medibank was targeted. They couldn’t keep 9.7 million of their customers safe.
What’s more, the hacks haven’t stopped in 2023. In March, Latitude Financial declared that 14 million people that they had on file had their data pinched. Latitude Financial is an Australian lending institution.
Let’s just hope Australia’s new Privacy Commissioner can turn such hacks into history. The selection process starts today.
Related: Why Hackers Are Attacking Australia
Related: Australian Government Cyber Security Plan, Detailed
Read more stories from The Latch and subscribe to our email newsletter.