Australia’s Treasury wants more companies to be able to share consumer data between them. 

Treasury is looking at ways to expand the number of businesses that can access data under the consumer data right to “encourage greater uptake”.

Australia’s Consumer Data Right (CDR) scheme gives consumers access to and control over their data and who can access it. The system is designed to share a person’s data between service providers of their choosing. 

So far, the CDR regime is only active in banking, allowing users to share that banking data with a prospective bank to get a better offer, or with an app to access a new service. There are plans for it to be used in the energy sector and then telecommunications sector in coming years. 

Currently, only accredited data recipients (ADRs) can receive a consumer’s data from data holders and use it in their own products or services.

The ACCC has endorsed just nine ADRs, including several small fintechs, credit bureaus and the Commonwealth Bank.

There have been complaints that the process to become an ADR is too “costly” and “laborious”, so Treasury has come up with a new “sponsored accreditation model”.

This new model would allow ADRs to sponsor other parties as accredited ‘affiliates’; allowing them to make consumer data requests through ADR.

More information is accessible here.