10 April 2024 Office of the President

To the extent that it may be considered a ‘serious invasion of privacy’, doxxing should be considered in the context of Proposal 27.1 of the Privacy Act Review Report (the Privacy Report), which recommended that:3 • a statutory tort be introduced for serious invasions of privacy, in the form recommended by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) in Report 123;4 and • that the Government consul. [...] In the Law Council’s submission to the Department in April 2023 to inform the Government response to the Privacy Report, we acknowledged that there are diverse views within the legal profession on the introduction of a statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy.5 However, on balance, and having regard to developing international jurisprudence in this area,6 we provided in-principle support fo. [...] In our submission to the Department, we further remarked that: … given the need for further detailed consultation on the model and scope of the tort, which will be very important to get right, the Law Council considers that the introduction of a statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy may be most appropriately progressed through a subsequent tranche of reforms to Australia’s privacy regime. [...] In September 2023, the Australian Government provided ‘in-principle’ agreement to most of the proposals in the Privacy Report, including Proposal 27.1.9 The Government stated that the invasion of privacy would need to be either a serious intrusion into seclusion, or a serious misuse of private information.10 In addition, a plaintiff bringing a cause of action should be required to provide: • the p. [...] However, the term ‘doxxing’ is not mentioned in the Privacy Report, and it has not been subject to the same level of scrutiny that has been undertaken by the Department about Proposal 27.1, and reforms to the Privacy Act more generally.