The Community Council of Australia (CCA) welcomes the proposed privacy reforms that will support a fairer and safer environment for Australians as we transition to a modern digital age. Australia needs robust fit for purpose protections where privacy is taken seriously and no longer misused by those who collect, share and profit from our data.

However, at a time when both demand and costs on our sector’s charities and not-for-profits (NFPs) are increasing, while facing multiple emerging operational, fundraising and sustainability challenges, our sector is being asked to do increasingly more with less. This includes meeting the significantly higher bar of the proposed reforms and safely collecting, managing, storing and disposing of the vast amounts of critical data handled by our sector, including the highly sensitive personal information of some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

Our sector is also being asked to deal with growing cyber security threats, digital capacity, artificial intelligence and data privacy needs without the many incentives, concessions, programs and extra funding that the government is providing to small business1 that would help accommodate for many of the extra regulatory and compliance obligations of these reforms.

Australia’s charities and NFPs need equal assistance so that they can sustainably meet these important privacy requirements. The government can start by supporting our sector’s urgent digital, data governance and capacity uplift needs by providing greater investment towards the NFP Digital Futures co-funding initiative2, and by extending the appropriate incentives, concession and programs afforded to small businesses to similar sized charities and NPFs.

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