The long awaited response to Harper Review has finally been released. According to the latest reports, the Government will soon be starting to make moves that will empower the customers to use the data that are collected on them by the various companies so that they can make better purchasing decisions. This decision is in line with the Harper competition Review. This particular review of competition laws of Australia was brought forward in April. The review suggested that Australia should follow UK’s path so that a new market can be created for tools of digital comparison with the help of which customers will be able to analyze their own data.
The ‘midata’ initiative was launched by the United Kingdom government way back in 2011. This encouraged the companies to release the personal data collected on the customers to them. This was done in an electronic standardized format. Companies like Visa, MasterCard, Lloyd’s Bank and RBS have already given their consent by signing up to this particular scheme. The Department for business innovation of Britain informed the Harper Committee that the data could be useful to the customers and can affect the purchase decisions of the customers like choosing a telephone bill contract after taking into consideration the last 1 year’s usage, or by analyzing the credit card expenses and finding out ways to optimize the savings.
The ACCC (Australia’s competition and consumer watchdog) along with consumer group Choice have decided to support the proposal.
The Harper Review panel opined that a working group should be formed so that implementation of a similar approach could be worked out. It should involve a common standard for the data sets to be revealed and the consumer should be educated on the procedure.
The recommendation was also supported by the Federal Government. The new Australian Council for Competition Policy would be asked to form the required working group. A “partnership agreement” will be developed by the group that “allows people to access and use their own data for their own purposes and enables new markets for personal information services”, much like the approach taken by UK. The Productivity Committee will responsible for reviewing the options which might improve the public’s accessibility to the data in question.