AI consumer safety priorities

The Attorney-General's portfolio, together with the Communications, Industry and Science, Employment and Workplace Relations, and Treasury portfolios, has jointly set out a series of AI consumer safety priorities. The priorities include legislating a digital duty of care that places the onus on AI companies to build in safety by design and to address potential harms, led by the Minister for Communications, consulting on a second tranche of privacy reform to strengthen and modernise personal data protection laws, led by the Attorney-General, pursuing AI safety in the workplace as a priority area of the tripartite Artificial Intelligence Workplace and Employment Forum, and examining options under Australian Consumer Law to address consumer protection gaps arising from AI.

The announcement is a statement of policy direction rather than legislation, and none of the measures it describes has commenced. The privacy reform strand is reflected in the exposure draft Privacy Amendment (Personal Data Protection) Bill 2026, released the following month, while the digital duty of care and Australian Consumer Law options remain at an earlier, pre-legislative stage with no published drafting.

The priorities indicate that AI related consumer harms are likely to be addressed primarily through amendments to existing consumer and privacy law and a proposed digital duty of care, rather than through a single dedicated AI statute. The announcement is relevant to businesses that use AI in customer facing products or decisions, as an early signal of the areas regulators are likely to focus on, though the specific content, scope and timing of any resulting obligations remain to be settled.