Media companies have rejected a proposal to reform Australian privacy law, warning that the changes – including a right to sue outlets for serious invasions of privacy – are not in the public interest and would harm press freedom.
The Right to Know coalition warns the attorney general’s department’s proposal, released in February, would have “a devastating impact on press freedom and journalism in Australia without any clearly defined need or benefit”.
The coalition includes the Guardian, News Corp, Nine, AAP, Free TV Australia, the media union and public broadcasters the ABC and SBS.
The proposal, which is not government policy, calls for Australians to gain greater control of their personal information, including the ability to opt out of targeted ads, erase their data and sue for serious breaches of privacy.
The department’s report said individuals wanted “more agency to seek redress for interferences with their privacy”. It proposed the creation of a right to sue for “serious invasions of privacy”, which was also a recommendation of the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2014.
But the Right to Know coalition on Thursday said this would be “contrary to public interest and result in a significant curtailing of press freedom in Australia”, particularly because it will “undermine news reporting” and fails to give enough weight to free speech.
It also argued a right to sue will “place a significant burden on courts and industry” and “will primarily benefit wealthy and high profile individuals”.
The Right to Know coalition said the impact would be greatest on smaller media organisations, which would have to cut back on reporting to comply.
“There is a serious danger under some of the proposals that journalism will be exposed to expensive and time-consuming legal challenges,” it said in a submission to the department.
If the right to sue is created, media organisations “in the course of journalism should be exempt from the operation of the tort”.
The department proposed that media companies should be required to comply with obligations to secure and destroy private information, and be obliged to notify affected individuals under the notifiable data breaches scheme.
But the Right to Know coalition “strongly objected” to tinkering with the journalism exemption in the Privacy Act, and suggested that if individuals get new rights then media companies should also be exempted from those.
The department also proposed for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to create “criteria for adequate media privacy standards and a template” that media companies may adopt. It said the OAIC should gain greater power to conduct “investigations of civil penalty provisions”.
The Right to Know coalition said there was a “significant risk” that these standards would stray into editorial decision making and areas better dealt with in the media sector rather than a privacy regulator.
These would include “matters of corrections and accuracy, as well as determining the appropriate balance of the freedom of expression against applicable rights of privacy”.
The coalition warned the OAIC “should not be given any additional investigatory powers: in particular it should not have any powers to issue warrants in respect of journalists and media organisations”.
The Business Council of Australia opposed the right to sue for privacy breaches in earlier consultations, labelling it “premature to introduce a tort that would often overlap with the protections of the Australian Privacy Principles”.
In January Sunita Bose, the managing director of Digital Industry Group Inc – whose members include Google, Apple, Meta, Twitter and TikTok – told Guardian Australia it was in favour of aligning Australia’s law with the European GDPR “which has a lot of strong elements, including consumer rights around data erasure”.
