[Australia] Government to overhaul privacy laws, including opting out of advertising, a right to be forgotten, and new rules for small businesses

www.abc.net.au Opting out of targeted ads, and a 'right to be forgotten': Government agrees to sweeping privacy reforms

The government has agreed to proposals that would allow Australians to opt out of targeted advertising, require search engines to "de-index" certain information about them, and draw small businesses into Australia's privacy scheme.

Related material, not all as optimistic as the ABC news article:

Australia @aussie.zone

Australia

Government to overhaul privacy laws, including opting out of advertising, a right to be forgotten, and new rules for small businesses

www.abc.net.au /news/2023-09-28/government-agrees-to-sweeping-privacy-reforms/102912458

127 35

6 comments

The title is misleading, the law will not let you to "opt out of advertising" completely but from using your private data for targeted advertising. So it's a progress on better privacy but the best solution still seems to be using uBlock Origin with proper subscriptions to just block all the ads and tracking scripts.
- I agree. It's just the title ABC News had on its article.

Hopefully by "require an entity to delete or de-identify their personal information." They mean we get to choose and not the people supposedly doing the deleting. Cos otherwise they will "de-identify" and we all know that means piss all in reality.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
Social media companies follow us wherever we go online (and occasionally offline), learning intimate details they can use to target advertising.
Millions of Australians have been implicated in data breaches compromising passport details, health information or other sensitive communications held onto long past when was reasonable.
Now, the federal government has committed to overhauling Australia's privacy laws following the recommendations of a major review first initiated by the former administration.
Among the proposals the government has tentatively agreed to is also the idea that individuals should have the right to require an entity to delete or de-identify their personal information.
The government agrees in-principle that people should have that right, including being able to require search engines to de-index certain information about them, meaning it would not show in their results.
The government has flagged it will continue working on the reforms into next year, with fresh rounds of consultation to come for some of the most complex proposals, as well as likely transition periods for those affected.
The original article contains 785 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Thank god. What we also need is laws against junk mail. Real estate agents ignore the no junk mail signs entirely

I wonder if this will apply to the auzzie glowies. They are the ones Austrians should be worried about

6 comments