Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, Oct. 23 (Reuters)-Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said Australia will submit a law to Parliament to increase penalties for companies that have suffered major data breaches after high-profile cyber attacks hit millions of Australian users in recent weeks.

Australia's telecoms, financial and government departments have been on high alert since Optus, a unit of Singtel, Australia's second-largest telecoms company, disclosed the hacking on Sept. 22, with personal data stolen from as many as 10 million accounts.

CTOnews.com learned that the attack was followed by a data breach this month by Medibank Private, a health insurance company that covers 1/6 Australians, resulting in the theft of personal information, including medical diagnoses and surgeries, of 100 customers as part of the theft of 200GB data.

Dreyfus said in an official statement on Saturday that the government would take action next week to amend the privacy law to "significantly increase the penalties for repeated or serious violations of privacy."

He said the proposed changes would increase the maximum penalty for serious or repeated violations of privacy from the current A $2.22 million (about 10.26 million yuan) to A $5000 million (about RMB 231.12 million), that is, three times the value of benefits gained through misuse of information, or 30% of turnover in the relevant period, whichever is the higher.

The attorney general said that when Australian users are required to hand over their personal data to companies, they have the right to expect that the data will be protected.

"the major privacy leaks in recent weeks have shown that the existing safeguards are not enough. penalties for major data breaches are seen as the cost of doing business and are far from enough."

We need better laws to regulate how companies manage the amount of data they collect, as well as greater penalties to encourage better behavior.

The announcement follows plans by the Australian government earlier this month to overhaul consumer privacy rules, which will help telecoms companies and banks share data in a targeted manner in the wake of Optus violations.

After the Optus attack, two Australian regulators launched an investigation into the company, which was severely criticized for failing to stop the largest hacker attack in Australia's history.

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