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Australia’s new privacy laws: what does this mean for international hosting?

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Published on May 02, 2012 Australia’s new privacy laws: what does this mean for international hosting?

Posted at 6:52 pm in Ecommerce by

Last updated on October 30, 2018

Australia has made a move to improve our Privacy laws, with amendments formally announced today by Attorney-General Nicola Roxon. The new laws increase the level of protection of Australia’s existing Privacy Act and will be formally passed through Parliament later this year.

A large proportion of the amendments are targeted at tightening the rules for companies using direct marketing but these amendments will affect how customer information is stored and used in both offline and online business, with new rules about how data can be sent internationally and what financial information about individuals can be accessed and stored (including information about your credit file). What do these laws mean for businesses like yours storing any information about Australians in offshore servers (through other parts of your business, or through your website software for example)?

For online store owners, one of the main implication of these privacy amendments (regardless of whether direct marketing is used in your business) is where your data is hosted as the privacy of your customer’s information must be protected even if their credit card data is processed and stored only at your payment provider.

If your data is hosted offshore, it will need to be in a world-class data centre, in a country that has privacy rules similar or better to Australia’s. Firms hosting in some Asian countries or in data centres that do not meet strict international standards may find themselves looking for new hosting providers for their stores, or be up for additional costs in protecting their data. Hosting offshore will be best done in the US, or EU countries due to the tough security and privacy standards already in place in those countries.

This means that businesses will need to start looking to have their online shop data hosted in providers who use world-class data centres like the one where Ozcart™ websites are physically located.

For example, Ozcart™ hosted businesses will already meet the criteria of the law amendments when they come into place because Ozcart sites are hosted in data centres that:

  • Are part of the world’s largest private hosting network
  • Have already been certified as meeting the EU SafeHarbor privacy standards
  • Meet the strict privacy standards set out by the US Department of Commerce
  • Are secure meeting PCI DSS security standards set by Visa and MasterCard with a quarterly security audit completed by international security company, Comodo.

 

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