According to a report in newspaper WA Today, the Australian government announced plans to create a law forcing companies to disclose privacy breaches to the public. Newspaper WA Today reports that 1,560,791 Australian accounts were affected as a result of the attack on Sony’s PlayStation Network, along with 280,000 credit card details. A timeline for the introduction of this proposal was not revealed, but the government seems to be serious about it. In addition to planning a new law to deal with events like Sony's, the government has criticized the company over the way it has handled its security problems.
Privacy minister Brendan O'Connor recently said that he is "very concerned" over the data loss, but Sony isn't the only company he is concerned about when it comes to security and privacy issues.
"Sony isn't alone. We've seen serious privacy-related incidents in recent months involving other large companies," said O'Connor. "All companies that collect customers' personal information must ensure that the information is safe and secure from misuse."
Comments
Re: Australian Government Planning Law in Response to PSN ...
But they did know more than they disclosed when they brought the PSN offline. It would be incredibly difficult to claim they didn't know these breaches were a possibility at this point in time.
Re: Australian Government Planning Law in Response to PSN ...
I don't think this would have changed much concerning the PSN fiasco, sony did disclose the info to the public, maybe not as fast as we'd have liked, but they stated they didn't actually know right away like everyone just automatically assumes. Of course they could be lying, they could be telling the truth. so far the only real statement on that fact is the usual "it's a corporation they must be lying" which...yeah i can understand why people hold that opinion, but i'm not subscribing to that as actual proof they tried to hide it.
Also what's with this theft of 280,000 CC details? We know about 12,000 card details that were supposedly stolen from a SOE 2007 database, but where the hell did this number come from?
Edit: just read the source, that's how many of australian accounts actually had CC's attached to them. it does follow the current trend of stating no evidance of actual theft of the CC data or related fraud.
Re: Australian Government Planning Law in Response to PSN ...
I think part of the motivation behind such laws, regardless of if one believes Sony is lieing this time or not, companies are a bit warier of lieing when there is a law involved then simply public relationships.
If Sony is lieing this time, well, the penalty is not that much.. they get a little bad PR and people move on... so they have a good reason to risk it.
If there are laws in place regarding at what stage they must disclose things, lieing to hold off the announcement (hopefully) carries a real penalty that they would have to factor in.