Data Protection, Privacy and Incident Response

In today’s digital landscape, ensuring data protection and privacy compliance in Australia is more critical than ever. The risks associated with having a strong cyber presence while ensuring robust data protection and safeguarding privacy keep many clients awake at night. Cyber incidents, data loss and the unauthorised disclosure of personal information can impact people’s lives, disrupt business and cause serious financial or reputational damage.

We work with a trusted network of forensic investigators, accountants, insurance specialists and crisis communications experts. Together, we deliver legal services that are strategic, practical and seamlessly integrated.

How we assist:

Incident response

A swift response is critical after a cyberattack or unauthorised disclosure. If you need immediate help, contact our email hotline, monitored 7 days a week.

We also advise on proactive response planning to reduce legal and reputational risk.

Email hotline: cyber@bartier.com.au

Regulatory compliance

Being on the front foot from a compliance perspective is imperative. Both state and federal legislation contain strict rules around digital security and privacy, imposing severe penalties for organisations that get it wrong. We provide practical guidance on how these laws should influence the design of your systems and processes, to safeguard your stakeholders and protect both confidential and personal information.

We regularly work with government agencies, academic institutions and private organisations to ensure they understand their obligations.

Governance and risk management

We help clients manage digital and privacy risks across complex, evolving legal frameworks. Our advice covers compliance with privacy legislation, mandatory data breach notification schemes, managing a notifiable data breach, best-practice policy frameworks and cyber insurance.

We don’t just help you comply with the law, we show you how to build safeguards into your organisation. By integrating privacy and data compliance with commercial and regulatory obligations, we deliver practical and forward-thinking advice.

Our team can:

Respond to requests for personal, health and other sensitive information.
Advise on data retention, storage, hygiene, and the security of personal information.
Provide ‘legal penetration testing’ of contracts, audit systems and policies.
Support your organisation during cyber incidents, including containment, notification and recovery.
Develop systems and protocols to protect digital assets and personal information while reducing claims risk.
Build compliance programs tailored to your risk profile.
Resolve cyber or privacy breach claims through negotiation, dispute resolution or litigation.
Conduct cyber and privacy impact assessments to identify vulnerabilities.
Train your staff so that they understand and uphold your cyber privacy obligations, reducing exposure to unnecessary risk.

Examples of our work are:

Advising a real estate data platform about the user consent requirements for a new digital service offering. This involved assisting our client in the design of the user interfaces for its service app and preparing electronic communications to users, to ensure the consent requirements were met.
Advising a major Australian not-for-profit organisation with a data breach incident which occurred with its donor call centre service provider. While the breach was not a notifiable data breach, our client decided to inform the individuals impacted. We worked with our client’s IT, forensic and public relations advisers to accurately identify the information accessed, prepare the communications and ready our client for media attention.
Advising a major university on their privacy obligations under NSW and federal legislation regarding collection and use of personal and health information and preparing relevant documents. We analysed and streamlined their existing process to create uniformity amongst several bodies to reduce risk for the university.