Australian Treasury Releases Draft Bill on Consumer Data Right
By Jim Bulling, Daniel Knight and Felix Charlesworth
On 15 August 2018, Treasury opened consultation on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Consumer Data Right) Bill 2018 (CDR Bill). The CDR Bill broadly sets out the legislative framework for providing consumers with the right to access to specified data held in relation to them by businesses and authorises secure access to this data by certain accredited third parties.
The initial application for the CDR Bill will relate to the access of banking data (as known as Open Banking). However, the CDR Bill also empowers of the Minister to determine which other sectors of the Australian economy to which this legislation will apply to in the future. As stated in the explanatory memorandum for the CDR Bill, the Government has committed that the telecommunications and energy sectors will soon also be subject to the CDR Bill.