Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Information Disclosure, National Interest and Other Measures) Bill 2022

✦ Plain-English Summary

# Telecommunications Legislation Amendment Bill 2022

## What it does
This law tightens the rules around when telecommunications companies can share your personal information with government agencies and others. It requires companies to keep detailed records of who they've given your data to and why, and it clarifies what counts as information in the "national interest" that they're allowed to disclose.

## Why it matters
Right now, telcos can hand over customer data pretty broadly if they think it's in the national interest—but there's no clear paper trail of who asked for what. This change means there's accountability: you could theoretically find out if your data was shared, and companies have to justify their decisions. It's a privacy safeguard in a system where telecom companies hold a lot of sensitive info about Australians.

## Key details
- **Record-keeping**: Companies must log every disclosure of customer information within 6 months of this law passing, creating an auditable record
- **Clearer rules**: The definition of "national interest" disclosure gets tightened up so it's not just a blank cheque
- **Most changes kick in immediately** after the law passes, except the record-keeping requirement (which has a 6-month delay to give companies time to set systems up)

Official Description

Amends the: Telecommunications Act 1997 to: enable carriers and carriage service providers to use and disclose information for purposes connected to the prevention of a serious threat to the life or health of a person; authorise the use and disclosure of unlisted numbers and associated addresses for the purposes of dealing with matters raised by a call to an emergency service number; confer civil immunities on telecommunications companies for the provision of reasonably necessary assistance to the Commonwealth, states or territories where a national emergency declaration is in force; and require more detailed records of information to be recorded for authorised disclosures; and Telstra Corporation and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2021 and Telecommunications Act 1997 to make minor technical amendments.

Committee Referrals

Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee; Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights; Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills

Full bill PDF →APH page →

Audit History

Introduced

10 Nov 2022

Last updated on APH

10 Apr 2026

Outcome date

11 Apr 2023

Last checked by Crossbench

today

Full text indexed

today

🗳️

No formal division recorded

This bill passed by voice vote — parliament agreed without calling a formal count. A division is only recorded when a member explicitly requests one.

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