Veronica Scott

4 weeks ago | pinsentmasons.com | Susan Kantor |Veronica Scott |Aleesha Way |Alexis Coleman

Susan Kantor, an expert in cyber law at Pinsent Masons, said: “There is no law across APAC that specifically prohibits the payment of ransom following a cyber-attack.” “A new law that is unique in Australia is the Cyber Security Act, which introduced a range of new obligations, including new ransomware payment reporting laws that take effect from 30 May,” she said.

Dec 3, 2024 | pinsentmasons.com | Veronica Scott |Alison Rankine

Passage of the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 to amend the Online Safety Act 2021 (‘the Bill’) comes shortly after the Australian government announced its intention to introduce the new legislation on 9 November, meaning the Bill was rushed through by the government. Prime minister Anthony Albanese accepted the regulation was not perfect, but said that “social media is doing harm to kids”, that he is “calling time on it” and “it was the right thing to do”.

Nov 4, 2024 | pinsentmasons.com | James Arnott |Veronica Scott |Alasdair Weir |Aleesha Way

The CDR - an economy-wide reform inserted as Part IVD of the Consumer and Competition Act 2020 (CCA) – was, when introduced, described by the then Commonwealth minister for superannuation, financial services and the digital economy Jane Hume as “one of the most transformative technological advances Australia as ever made”. It was designed to give consumers greater control over their data in a digital data driven economy.

Oct 7, 2024 | pinsentmasons.com | Jason Kaye |Veronica Scott |Alison Rankine

The Australian government’s Scams Prevention Framework (SPF), which was released by the Treasury in the form of a draft exposure Bill for public consultation in September, aims to implement new mandatory and comprehensive scam obligations  across all sectors of the economy, beginning with three designated sectors - banking, telecommunication providers and digital platform services.

Sep 18, 2024 | pinsentmasons.com | Jason Kaye |Veronica Scott |Alasdair Weir |Aleesha Way

The highly anticipated first package of the Australian government’s newly proposed Privacy Act reforms have been introduced to parliament in the Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 (Cth). Despite the high expectations - and following a long consultation process which spanned over four years - the amendments focus on the structural framework and powers which underpin the legislation and some enhancements, rather than major fundamental changes.