Evaluating the extent to which the Australian open banking regulatory framework effectively balances data privacy and innovation

To accelerate the pace of innovation through customer data sharing, the Australian government legislated 'Consumer Data Right' Act, which is being implemented as 'Open Banking' in the banking sector. Since Open Banking is customer data-dependent, the regulators have augmented data protection by introducing new Privacy Safeguards. However, the regulatory conditions that improve data privacy may have an adverse effect on innovation. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the extent to which the provisions under the Open Banking regulations balance customer's data privacy and data-driven innovation. Using theoretical and doctrinal methods, this thesis develops a new theoretical model to integrate the principles necessary to protect data privacy with the conditions that are conducive for innovation. After applying the six criteria of the developed model to analyse the Open Banking regulations, this research concludes that the regulators did not appropriately consider the interdependence of data privacy and innovation and that one can be used to promote the other. This thesis demonstrates the need to revise the regulations with due consideration to the insights drawn from this research, for effectively balancing the provisions that protect data privacy with those that enable data-related innovation.