The rush to regulate: How to adapt to changing regulations & rules
Synopsis
Across the APAC region, and more broadly across developing economies across the world, there has been a rush by regulators to modernise and adapt privacy and cybersecurity regulations.
Australia, in particular, has overhauled its privacy regulations in 2024, and is widely expected to more in the coming year. Our major trading partners are taking similar actions. While much of the same principles are embodied in these regulations, jurisdictions have sufficient variation and between their rules that it offers significant complications to organisations working across them. This is a significant change from the last decade were there was a concerted effort to streamline regulations.
We must recognise that we are now operating in truly multipolar world, with the likelihood this will at best will only slow the splintering of regulations, and at worst resulting in significant contradictory regulation.
If this was troublesome enough, regulators are now rushing to regulate the development and use of AI, and we are at faced with a real risk that we will end up crippling AI innovation and squandering the significant productivity benefits it offers us. We risk the situation where data collected for approved purposes today, is banned tomorrow, causing massive problems should that have been incorporated into either Generative AI or Agentic AI training sets.
All of this presents a significant burden and complexity of management to Australian businesses, with threat of not just major penalties for non-compliance, but lost opportunities.
In this talk we will explore, what Australian businesses must do to adapt to the updated the Australian privacy regulations, what the potential changes to this regulation are over the next 2 years. Key considerations, impacts and requirements of these regulation will be covered with direct advice on how to engineer processes for compliances without getting in the way of the business.
Furthermore, this talk will look at the most important AI regulation from Europe and the USA, what this likely means for Australia and the risks that over-regulation may face to existing business practices.
Examples and considerations for different low and high regulation settings will be presented, with recommendations on how to prepare for each, to minimise liability and risk, while maximising innovation and productivity in each setting. Special focus will be given to the AI over-regulation risk, with practical advice on how to prepare today for this possible future.