Privacy regulator puts companies on notice with Australian Clinical Labs lawsuit
The OAIC case against Australian Clinical Labs shows the regulator is prepared to back up talk with action.
The privacy regulator's announcement on Friday that it had begun legal proceedings against Australian Clinical Labs, or ACL, over the Feb. 2022 data breach suffered by its Medlab Pathology business indicates a step change in its enforcement action against the corporate sector.
Until Friday, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner had only ever brought one civil lawsuit - the ongoing case started in 2020 against Meta linked to Cambridge Analytica.
The Attorney-General's Department has said it wants a stronger enforcement focus from the OAIC and this might be the first concrete signal of that change in focus.
Ashurst partner Geoff McGrath has said "this is much more significant than what has been done to date." Though he added that "it's perhaps a little too early to tell if this flags a more litigious approach to enforcement in general."
