Data availability report presents compromised rights for consumers

A promising inquiry into how data is used in Australia has proved disappointing, with consumers being offered few new protections. Released this week, the Productivity Commission’s final report, titled Data Availability and Use, represents a major shift in the legal landscape of data rights. The report makes a number of recommendations. Most importantly, it argues for the creation of a so-called “comprehensive right” for individuals or small businesses to access, correct and transfer data about themselves held by product or service providers. In my assessment, the comprehensive right frames personal information as a commodity rather than as an inviolable attribute of our identity. It encourages us to share and sell it, rather than guard and protect it. It envisages individuals as walking data compilations. If the government takes up the Productivity Commission’s recommendations, however, we would remain largely in the dark as to how and why our data is used to make commercial decisions about us, on issues such as our credit risk. This shift shows we cannot continue to treat big data’s consequences for individuals as simply a matter of privacy. Instead, the increasing use of such tools implicates other areas of law, including competition and consumer law.