The Department of Home Affairs has been undertaking consultation around the development of Australia’s next Cyber Security Strategy. The current Cyber Security Strategy was written in 2016 and set goals to be completed over four years.

ACCAN has responded to the Department of Home Affairs’ discussion paper, to ensure that the experiences of consumers, including small businesses, are reflected in the 2020 Cyber Security Strategy. In our submission we focused on consumer concerns about cyber security, including the impact that cybercrimes have on consumers, including small businesses; the information asymmetry that can exist between consumers and manufacturers; and the threats to consumer privacy that can occur due to cyberattacks or insecure connected devices.

We made a number of recommendations in our submission, including that the 2020 Cyber Security Strategy must:

• include specific actions addressing consumer concerns about their privacy and data security;
• fund an accessible and inclusive cyber safety consumer education campaign;
• call for the development of industry-wide ‘security by design’ standards; and
• stipulate the development of a whole of government procurement policy detailing minimum cyber security features for connected devices.

Download: Cyber Security Strategy 2020 - ACCAN submission817.14 KB
Download: Cyber Security Strategy 2020 - ACCAN submission784.35 KB