Opinion: Privacy Act Updates - What Marketers Need to Know

Privacy Act Updates Marketers Need to Know

By Joseph McCarthy, Senior Account Director for APAC, Pipeline360

It’s now been six months since Australia’s long-awaited privacy reforms were introduced. After years of consultation and review, updates to the Privacy Act are bringing the country more in line with international standards, giving individuals greater rights over their personal data and holding organisations to greater account.

For marketers, navigating these changes can feel daunting. Data, after all, is at the heart of effective strategy in an age of personalisation. This means that marketing functions play a crucial role in managing related risks. 

Recent research however, found that marketers in the Asia Pacific region were the most likely to cite data concerns as a top challenge (31% vs. 23% in the UK and Europe and 25% in the US), suggesting that compliance could remain unfamiliar territory for many.

But they shouldn’t be worried. In fact, research also reveals that high-performing teams take privacy more seriously than their peers, building trust and long-term customer value. Australia’s new privacy landscape is not just a compliance exercise. It’s an opportunity for marketers to lead with data ethics and differentiate in our increasingly data-driven world.

A new era of privacy rights

It all began with the GDPR. Pre-2018, data subjects were relatively under-informed and under-protected when it came to their privacy rights. Then, a multi-year legislative initiative by the European Commission changed everything. It created a new set of fundamental rights related to consumers’ personally identifiable information, while imposing fresh obligations on organisations seeking to obtain and use that data.

The world soon followed suit, with the US, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and other jurisdictions creating their own versions of the regulation. Now, Australia’s reforms, which came into effect in December 2024, aim to deliver similar protections and requirements. 

As well as boosting individual rights on privacy, these introduce a civil penalty regime, which could enable the regulator to hit organisations for even low-level offences related to direct marketing and privacy policy non-compliance. 

Significantly, there are also stronger data protection obligations, meaning that organisations must put in place “technical and organisational measures” to keep personal information secure. In other words, businesses need to deploy cybersecurity controls, alongside non-technical steps like improved governance, policies and training on data handling.

A new “allowlist” mechanism for disclosing personal information overseas to recipients in approved countries should serve to reduce the compliance burden, however. 

Compliance drives quality

Marketing teams may feel alarmed by the growing patchwork of GDPR-style laws crisscrossing the globe. The perception has often been that stricter rules around the collection and use of data -especially requirements around explicit opt-in consent - will harm efforts to create targeted, effective campaigns. New laws may even persuade some teams to eschew tactics like content syndication altogether, if they believe that regulations will impact their ability to collect crucial data on audiences. 

Given the potential financial penalties associated with regulatory action, it’s not hard to see how smaller Australian marketing teams could become more risk-averse in their activities, especially if they come to view the cost and complexity of compliance as prohibitive. However, they’d be wrong to do so.

In fact, data quality, accuracy and compliance go hand in hand. We found that nearly three-quarters (73%) of global B2B marketers rank data compliance and accuracy as a high or top priority . It’s also telling that 90% of high-performing teams see this as a top priority, versus 57% of low performers. 

Why is this? Probably because they understand the benefits that come from compliance. They know that enhanced security and privacy measures can increase consumer trust - burnishing the brand and reputation, and in so doing helping to carve out competitive differentiation. They also know that data subjects who have given their prior consent can be more successfully targeted with personalised and relevant content, improving the performance of campaigns. 

Paying more heed to privacy compliance can benefit Aussie marketers in other ways too. Theoretically, it should reduce the likelihood of a serious data breach and associated financial and reputational damage. That may free corporate funds to put back into campaigns.

How to get there 

Australian marketing teams keen to exploit these advantages must first of all review their current privacy practices and policies to ensure they are compliant with the new laws. This is especially true of consumer-facing privacy policies, data collection statements and consent mechanisms. Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) can help greatly to simplify this process. Third-party legal and compliance experts could also be consulted to provide peace of mind that any marketing strategy is on the right track, especially for more complex cross-border campaigns. 

An even simpler step would be to team up with an expert, compliance-oriented demand generation partner. If there aren’t any on the books already, marketing teams will need to do some due diligence on potential providers. Those with solid compliance credentials should be shouting it from the rooftops. ISO 27001, ISO 27701 and SOC 2 Type II accreditations are a great place to start. Providers with these in place will be well on their way to having the “technical and organisational measures” cited above.

By partnering in this way, marketing teams can effectively outsource the cost and complexity of compliance with privacy regulations, ensuring leads are valid, standardised, and opt-in compliant. It would be better still if a single, trusted partner were able to handle the entire lead gen pipeline - from content creation and syndication, to digital display ads designed to engage top-of-funnel leads until they’re sales-ready.

The journey starts now

Rather than see new regulations as a reason to back away from content syndication and other lead gen activities, it should be a spur for Aussie marketers to double down on compliance. Data accuracy and privacy are essentially two sides of the same coin.

When done right, they both point to better quality leads and improved performance.

The key is finding a platform partner you can trust to handle as much of the heavy lifting as possible.

By Joseph McCarthy, Senior Account Director for APAC, Pipeline360