In a record 1.5 months from the attorney-general’s announcement that her office would “[consult] on a second tranche of privacy reform to responsibly strengthen, modernise and simplify Australia’s personal data protection laws”, the Australian government has delivered, with an exposure draft of the Privacy Amendment (Personal Data Protection) Bill 2026 (Cth) (Draft Bill) released on 21 August.
The Draft Bill arrives with a consultation paper (Paper), which clarifies how some of the proposals in the Draft Bill could operate while seeking feedback on other proposed measures under development. In particular, the Paper focuses on recent areas of public attention, asking whether additional measures are required to regulate new technologies such as wearables.
The Draft Bill is subject to consultation until 18 September, with responses limited to 1,000 words. This suggests that, after years of consulting on privacy reform, the government has crafted the Draft Bill to minimise challenge and put forward ready-to-go amendments that they think reflect consensus (or something close to it). This is supported by the introduction to the Draft Bill, which emphasises that most of the proposals have been taken from the government response to the Privacy Act Review Report (Government Response).
We have summarised highlights from the Draft Bill in the full insight, as well as what these might mean in practice and questions or concerns that we have. While the Paper also asks stakeholders whether the proposals adequately protect the privacy risks associated with emerging technologies, our sense of both the Draft Bill and the attorney-general’s accompanying announcement is that the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) will continue to regulate these devices in general and from a tech-neutral perspective, with no discrete and specific focus on any one kind of technology (regardless of the public attention).
The Draft Bill notably excludes most of the proposals in the Government Response, including tinkering with the small business and employee record exemptions or granting individuals a direct right of action. It is difficult to predict whether these will reenter the conversation in the future, but, for now, we expect that the Draft Bill reflects the furthest that the government is willing to go.
Read full insight to learn more.
