Protecting private data: How consumer law can play a role

In July of 2019, the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) delivered its final report following its inquiry into digital platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter. The Inquiry, constituted in 2017 by then Treasurer Scott Morrison, was directed at investigating the ‘impact of digital search engines, social media platforms and other digital content aggregation platforms … on the state of competition in media and advertising service markets’ as well as the ‘impact of [the] information asymmetry between platform service providers, advertisers and consumers’.

The ACCC, as part of both its Final Report and Preliminary Report (issued in July 2019 and December 2018, respectively), examined the relationship between digital platforms and consumers in great detail. One of the most prominent findings set out in the Preliminary Report was that privacy policies only provided ‘consumers with an opaque view of privacy and data protections while simultaneously outlining broad discretions for digital platforms to collect, use and disclose consumer data’, suggesting the existence of a significant information and power imbalance between the platform and consumers...