Upcoming Privacy Law Changes in Australia: What This Really Means for Small Businesses

Content Index

• Why Privacy Law Is Being Reworked in Australia
• What Is Changing Under Australia’s Privacy Reforms
• Will These Changes Affect Small Businesses
• Privacy Compliance Is About Behaviour, Not Just Policies
• What Small Businesses Should Be Doing Now
• Businesses Most Exposed to Privacy Risk
• Practical Privacy Compliance (What This Looks Like Day to Day)
• Common Questions Small Businesses Ask
• Key Takeaways

For many small businesses, privacy compliance doesn’t feel like a daily concern. Until something goes wrong, it often sits in the background, handled by a Privacy Policy uploaded to the website and rarely revisited.

But the reality is that most businesses are interacting with personal information constantly, often without thinking of it as “privacy” at all.

Every marketing campaign, email funnel, booking system, and client onboarding process relies on customer data. Tools like Dubsado, HoneyBook, Timely, and Fresha store names, contact details, booking histories, notes, preferences, and sometimes far more sensitive information. Add email platforms, payment providers, analytics tools, and advertising pixels, and personal data is flowing through your business every day.

Australian privacy law is changing in response to exactly this reality.

The upcoming reforms are not about catching out small businesses for technical breaches. They are about lifting expectations around how personal information is collected, used, stored, and disclosed in modern, digital-first businesses. Regulators are paying closer attention to whether businesses understand their data practices and whether those practices match what they tell customers.

This matters whether you run an online business, a service-based practice, a clinic, or a membership platform. If your business relies on customer data to market, book, deliver, or get paid, privacy is no longer just something you publish on your website. It is part of how your business operates day to day.

---

Why Privacy Law Is Being Reworked in Australia

Australian privacy law was written for a very different business landscape.

When the Privacy Act was introduced, most small businesses were not:

• collecting data through websites and funnels,
• using third-party analytics and tracking tools,
• storing customer information across multiple cloud platforms,
• running digital marketing at scale.

Fast forward to now, and even a solo business owner can be handling sensitive information across payment providers, CRMs, email platforms, booking systems, and social media.

Add to that a series of major data breaches, growing public awareness, and international pressure to modernise privacy protections, and reform became inevitable.

The aim is simple: greater accountability for businesses and stronger protection for individuals.

---

What Is Changing Under Australia’s Privacy Reforms

The reforms don’t introduce one dramatic new rule. Instead, they tighten the framework across several key areas.

First, penalties for serious or repeated privacy breaches have increased significantly. Privacy non-compliance is no longer treated as a minor regulatory issue.

Second, regulators have more power to investigate how businesses actually handle data, not just what their documents say.

Third, there is a clear shift toward stronger individual rights. This includes clearer expectations around access, correction, deletion, and transparency.

Most importantly, the focus has moved from paperwork to practice. Businesses are expected to demonstrate that their privacy policies reflect reality.

As privacy reform continues, there is also increased focus on how businesses respond to requests to access, correct, or delete personal information. These requests are sometimes described as a “right to be forgotten”, even though that right is not absolute under Australian law and must be balanced against record-keeping and legal obligations.

---

Will These Changes Affect Small Businesses

Many small business owners assume privacy law is something only large organisations need to worry about. That assumption is increasingly risky.

While the Privacy Act includes a small business exemption, it does not apply in every situation. Businesses that handle health information, sensitive information, or operate in certain industries are often caught regardless of size. In those cases, privacy obligations apply whether the business employs one person or one thousand.

Even where an exemption may technically exist, there are practical realities that make privacy compliance unavoidable. Payment providers, booking platforms, email marketing tools, and advertising platforms commonly require businesses to have compliant privacy practices in place as part of their terms of use. Consumers are also far more aware of how their personal information is handled and far more willing to question or challenge poor practices than they were even a few years ago.

In practical terms, most online and service-based businesses should operate on the assumption that privacy obligations apply to them. Acting as though privacy laws are irrelevant because of business size can leave gaps between what a business does in practice and what it should reasonably be doing to protect personal information.

Taking privacy seriously is no longer about business size. It is about business model, systems, and how personal information is actually handled day to day.

---

Privacy Compliance Is About Behaviour, Not Just Policies

This is where privacy compliance usually breaks down in practice.

Most businesses don’t intentionally misuse personal information. The problem is that their systems evolve faster than their thinking. New tools get added, workflows get automated, and suddenly personal data is being collected, stored, and shared in ways no one has consciously reviewed.

Take client management and booking systems as an example. Many businesses use CRMs and scheduling platforms to manage enquiries, appointments, payments, follow-ups, and marketing. Over time, these systems can accumulate detailed customer profiles, including contact details, booking history, notes about preferences or behaviour, cancellation history, and internal comments.

On paper, a Privacy Policy might say that personal information is only collected where necessary and used for clearly defined purposes. In reality, staff and contractors may have broad access to CRM records, notes may be retained indefinitely, and information collected for one purpose quietly starts being used for another, such as marketing or internal decision-making.

This disconnect matters.

If your Privacy Policy says you only collect what is reasonably necessary, but your forms and systems capture far more than you need, that’s a compliance issue. If your policy limits access to personal information, but multiple users can freely view or export customer records, that’s a risk. If your policy says information is retained only as long as required, but no one ever deletes anything, that’s not aligned with reality.

Regulators are far less concerned with whether your Privacy Policy is beautifully drafted than whether it is accurate. A policy that honestly reflects imperfect but reasonable practices is safer than one that promises standards your business does not meet.

The practical takeaway is simple: privacy compliance lives in how your business actually operates. Your documents should describe that behaviour, not an idealised version of it.

---

What Small Businesses Should Be Doing Now

For most small businesses, privacy compliance doesn’t start with legal drafting. It starts with understanding how information actually moves through the business.

Client enquiries rarely stop at a contact form. They flow into client management systems, booking platforms, calendars, payment processors, email tools, and marketing automations. Over time, those systems start to hold far more information than business owners realise, including notes, preferences, communications, and historical data that no one actively reviews.

The first step is awareness. Businesses should take stock of what personal information they collect at each stage of the customer journey, from first enquiry through to post-service follow-up. That includes looking inside booking systems and CRMs, not just website forms.

From there, the focus should be on necessity. Ask whether each piece of information is genuinely required to deliver the service, or whether it has simply been carried forward because the system allows it. Many platforms default to retaining data indefinitely, but that does not mean businesses should do the same.

Your Privacy Policy should then be reviewed against this reality. If the policy says information is collected for specific purposes, stored securely, and retained only as long as needed, your systems and workflows should support that. If they don’t, either the practices need to change, or the policy does.

This process is not about perfection. It is about ensuring that what you say publicly about privacy matches how your business actually operates behind the scenes.

---

Businesses Most Exposed to Privacy Risk

Some business models naturally carry a higher level of privacy risk, simply because of how much personal information they rely on to operate.

Online businesses often collect customer data at multiple points, from email sign-ups and purchases through to website analytics and advertising pixels. Service-based businesses tend to store customer records over time, including booking histories, communications, and internal notes, which can quietly accumulate into detailed personal profiles if not reviewed regularly.

Health, beauty, and wellness businesses frequently handle sensitive information, even where they are not formally regulated, which increases expectations around consent, security, and access control. Coaches, course creators, and membership platforms also face elevated risk because they often combine marketing data, payment information, and ongoing engagement records within the same systems.

Businesses that rely heavily on tracking tools, analytics, or digital advertising should be particularly mindful of how behavioural data is collected and disclosed. These tools can create privacy risk where customers are not clearly informed or where data is used in ways they do not reasonably expect.

If your business operates in any of these ways, privacy compliance should be treated as a core operational issue. It affects how you market, book, deliver services, and manage customer relationships, not just what appears in your legal documents.

---

Practical Privacy Compliance (What This Looks Like Day to Day)

In practice, good privacy compliance shows up in small, routine decisions rather than grand legal strategies.

It looks like limiting the amount of personal information collected through enquiry and booking forms to what is genuinely relevant. It means being cautious about internal notes stored in client records and avoiding unnecessary commentary that does not serve a legitimate business purpose.

It also means thinking carefully about access. Many CRMs and scheduling platforms allow multiple users to view, edit, or export customer data. Businesses should consider who actually needs access and whether permissions can be restricted, especially where contractors or casual staff are involved.

One of the biggest privacy risks for small businesses is keeping personal information longer than necessary simply because it sits inside a CRM or booking system. Data retention obligations sit alongside privacy law and determine how long records should be kept and when they should be deleted or anonymised. This is an area many businesses overlook until it becomes a problem.

Finally, privacy compliance requires occasional reassessment. Businesses evolve. New tools are added, marketing strategies change, and services expand. When that happens, privacy practices and policies should be revisited to ensure they still reflect reality.

When privacy compliance is treated as an ongoing operational issue rather than a one-off legal task, it becomes far easier to manage and far less likely to cause problems.

---

Common Questions Small Businesses Ask

Do I really need a Privacy Policy?

If you collect personal information online, whether through enquiry forms, booking systems, email sign-ups, or payments, a Privacy Policy is almost always necessary. It sets expectations for customers and provides transparency about how their information is handled. Even where legal exemptions may apply, many platforms, payment providers, and marketing tools still require businesses to have one in place.

Is consent always required?

Consent is not required for every use of personal information, but transparency always is. Customers should understand why their information is being collected and how it will be used. Consent becomes particularly important where personal information is used for marketing purposes or where sensitive information is involved. Clear explanations and honest disclosures are often more important than overly technical consent mechanisms.

What happens if I get this wrong?

Privacy issues rarely stay small. Complaints can lead to reputational damage, platform restrictions, customer distrust, and increased scrutiny from regulators. In more serious cases, enforcement action and financial penalties may follow. Even without formal action, fixing privacy issues after they surface is usually disruptive and costly.

Can I fix this later?

Privacy compliance is much easier to manage before there is a problem. Once a complaint is made or a data breach occurs, businesses are forced into reactive decisions under pressure. Addressing privacy practices early, while systems and processes are still flexible, is almost always simpler and less expensive.

---

Key Takeaways

Australian privacy law is tightening because the way small businesses handle personal information has quietly become far more complex. Booking systems, CRMs, marketing tools, payment platforms, and automation now hold detailed customer data by default, often for far longer and in far greater detail than businesses realise.

Privacy compliance is not about having a polished Privacy Policy sitting on your website. It is about whether your actual systems, workflows, and habits match what that policy says. What you collect through enquiry forms, what you store in client records, who can access that information, and how long it is kept all matter far more than the wording alone.

For most businesses, getting privacy right does not require drastic change. It requires awareness, restraint, and periodic review. Limiting unnecessary data collection, being thoughtful about internal notes and access, reviewing old records, and updating documents when systems change are practical steps that significantly reduce risk.

Privacy is no longer a one-off legal task. It is an operational issue that sits alongside how you market, book, deliver services, and get paid. Businesses that treat it that way are better positioned to manage risk, respond to change, and operate with confidence as privacy expectations continue to evolve.

Sources / Further Reading

Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 (Cth)

The official Act introducing major reforms, including expanded OAIC powers, new civil penalty structures, the statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy, automated decision‑making transparency obligations (commencing 10 December 2026), and the requirement to develop the Children’s Online Privacy Code.

https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2024A00128

OAIC Statement on the Passing of the Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024

Confirms the significance of the reforms, including new OAIC powers, the statutory tort, enforcement enhancements, and the Children’s Online Privacy Code mandate. 

[humanrights.gov.au]

Official updates from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), including announcements on regulatory priorities, automated decision‑making transparency, notifiable data breach statistics, and development of the Children’s Online Privacy Code.

https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre 

 

 

SIGN UP TO OUR FREE BUSINESS CHECKLIST

Disclaimer

We do our best to keep this content accurate and up to date, but laws change, interpretations evolve, and the internet isn’t perfect. Occasionally, information may be outdated or contain errors.

This content is for general information only and isn’t legal advice. If you choose to rely on it, you do so at your own discretion. For advice specific to your business, you’ll need support tailored to your situation. 

All rights reserved. © Foundd Legal Pty Ltd