Consumer Privacy and Consent: Reform in the Light of Contract and Consumer Protection Law

In its Digital Platforms Inquiry report, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission recommended reform of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) to provide better mechanisms for ensuring consumer consent and to the Australian Consumer Law to strengthen the protection for consumers. Such reforms would be timely, given growing concerns about the collection and use of consumer data. There has long been debate within the scholarly literature around the role and the limits of consent in promoting welfare-enhancing outcomes for consumers and the need for consent-based mechanisms to be supplemented by other protections. Moves to bolster consent within the field of consumer privacy, and indeed, the criticisms of relying on it, should be couched within this broader literature.