Australian Privacy Policy
An Australian website privacy statement does not always immediately comply with United States requirements. A website privacy policy can be modified to comply with multiple jurisdictions. Despite Australia having what is considered a strict privacy policy regulation, in the US there are a number of different laws regulating privacy policies of websites and businesses, many of which focus on consumer protection, many of which are in line with the Australian laws. However, there are some differences.The most significant difference, is the the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. This Act ensures data cannot be collected from children under 13 years old. This means, in practice that a privacy policy will need to explicitly state that it is not aimed at children under 13 years and that the website will not intentionally collect information from them to ensure the website privacy and practice is compliant. If a website is, in fact, aimed at children under 13 years of age, the website will need to ensure that it will not collect the data and it is best to add a clause to this effect in its privacy policy to make the website’s privacy policy US compliant.It is important to note that for over a decade there has been a good deal of debate in the US on strengthening their privacy policy laws. At the moment there is no singular regulatory body in the US that oversees privacy policy regulation, but this could change in the near future with the rapidly changing importance of privacy policies. It seems the importance of privacy policy legislation is quickly moving and changing in all countries, particularly Australia which has new legislation being implemented this year. As a result, it may prove to be much more difficult for a US website to make their privacy policy Australian compliant rather than vice versa. This is partly due to the strong focus in Australian law on how websites collect, store and disclose personal information, focusing on the latest website cookies issues. Generally, when having a website that covers multiple jurisdictions, a website owner may find a number of unexpected requirements exist in foreign jurisdictions in relation to privacy policy requirements. Privacy Policy Document