Oz minister ties privacy law review to PSN hack

In the wake of the deepening crisis over Sony’s lax gaming network security, Australia’s Privacy Minister Brendan O’Connor has hopped on the bandwagon, tying disclosure laws to Sony’s incidents.

Australia doesn’t actually have disclosure laws yet. Last year, the government launched the glacially-slow process of reviewing this country’s privacy regime, and there’s no sign that the reviews will bear fruit anytime soon.

However, that didn’t stop O’Connor setting off a small flurry of favourable coverage by issuing a ministerial statement in which he said data breach notification laws now appear necessary.

O’Connor also cited Dell (caught in the Epsilon breach) and Telstra as having a lax attitude to privacy.

The government first received a report into Australia’s privacy regime from the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2008. That report made 295 recommendations, some 197 of which the government claims are close to implementation.

However, O’Connor has not put forward a timetable for data breach notification laws. He’s merely popped a press release into the Sony news story to garner some attention. ®