Australian Businesses Must Now Report If They’ve Suffered A Data Breach

Australian governments are trying to protect citizens by demanding that big businesses will soon be legally obliged to disclose details of affected individuals of any ‘eligible’ data breach. Ilia Kolochenko, CEO at High-Tech Bridge commented below.

Ilia Kolochenko, CEO at High-Tech Bridge:

“The majority of the states in the US have already adopted similar laws, GDPR in the European Union and UK (despite Brexit) also implies strict data breach disclosure and notification guidelines.

“The obligation to report a data breach is definitely useful to protect customers, however its enforcement and control are not obvious. Professional cybercriminals do their best to remain unseen, at least for a certain period of time, recent Yahoo breaches – are good examples.

“Therefore, can we hold a company responsible for a breach that it is not aware of, despite best possible and reasonable efforts taken? The government should also allocate additional resources to investigate and prosecute cybercrime in a proportional manner. Otherwise, it seems unfair to put the entire responsibility on companies and organisations.”