Australian Privacy: a case of divergent evolution?

Context

Australian organisations are increasingly drawn into privacy conversations shaped by GDPR logic — through vendors, clients, templates, and “global best practice” expectations. Yet Australia’s privacy framework did not evolve from the same lineage, and when pressure is applied, it behaves very differently.

This TalkAbout explores how Australia’s privacy law grew out of a 1988 public-sector administrative model, was later extended into the private sector through add-ons, and has never been fully redesigned. We examine why the controller/processor model doesn’t exist in Australian law, how this creates practical compliance friction, and where Australian entities can still be exposed to foreign privacy regimes.

We’ll also look at the Consumer Data Right (CDR) — not as a privacy reform, but as a competition-law instrument — and what its development tells us about fragmentation and governance design in Australia’s data landscape.

Designed for compliance and operations specialists who need to navigate privacy discussions clearly, confidently, and credibly — without importing assumptions that don’t fit.

Why attend?

If you’re regularly pulled into privacy discussions shaped by GDPR assumptions — with vendors, clients, or internal stakeholders — this TalkAbout will help you regain conceptual footing. You’ll come away with a clear, practical understanding of why Australia’s privacy framework operates differently, how those differences matter in real compliance and governance conversations, and how to explain Australia’s “peculiarities” with confidence, precision, and care — without sounding defensive or out of step with global practice.