Organisations approached by ZDNet Australia claim to be ready for the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000, which comes into effect on December 21. However, some industry professionals believe companies aren't always aware of the extent of preparation required.
Michael Kiely, executive chairman at relationship marketing organisation Boomerang, believes the preparation involves a balance between privacy protection and business efficiency. Boomerang carries out direct marketing, and also runs a call centre and database operation. It has had to work with some of its customers on their privacy protocols and procedures, in order to ensure they will be ready for next month's deadline.
Kiely said he became involved in the privacy debate when the draft guidelines--which were criticised by the industry--were released. "There's nothing like going into battle with someone to work out what it is you're fighting about," he said. "[Companies] don't seem to understand that this isn't Y2K...that customers will be asking [for] access to files."
Bryan Fitzgerald, executive manager of corporate affairs at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said it had reviewed all its processes and was ready to meet the requirements of the Act. "Banking has always been [about] privacy and protection of customer's personal information, and confidentiality," he said.
Similarly, Colm Lorigan, general counsel at American Express International, said the company had analysed its information gathering processes before preparing a compliance plan to ensure it complied with the requirements of the Act.
American Express International has now implemented the plan.
"The final piece in the puzzle was the mailing we've just done to cardholders, changing the terms and conditions of the American Express card to include a consent under the new Privacy Act."
Lorigan said it wasn't just a matter of changing one or two processes, using the example of setting up processes to comply with Privacy Principle number 6--which requires processes to be in place to support customer enquiries about American Express-held information.
According to a spokesperson for the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner, there has been an increase in the number of enquiries during November. The spokesperson attributes this increase to the upcoming legislative changes.
"In raw terms, calls to our office have increased compared to this time last year," the spokesperson said. "Up to November 24 last year we'd received 519 calls for the month, for the same time this year we've received more than double."
In October, the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner received 356 specific enquiries about the new act, which has increased to 628 calls received to date, in November.
The Office has also experienced increases in traffic to its Web site, which is currently averaging about 200,000 page views per month. The spokesperson said the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner would be relaunching its site--which is due to go live on December 21--in time to meet new legislative demands about how organisation of information, and in order to provide a more flexible site structure.
