Legal Issues When Transferring Health Data Between the EEA and Australia

Taking account of both the laws extraterritorial applicationExtraterritorial application (in particular GDPR, Art. 3 and the Privacy Act 1988Privacy Act (1988) (Cth) s. 5B), and the rules on transborder data transfers (in particular GDPR Chap. 5 and the Privacy Act 1988Privacy Act (1988) (Cth) APP 8), this chapter considers and compares how the laws of the European Economic Area (EEA) and AustraliaAustralia regulates the transfer of health data between the EEA and AustraliaAustralia. There has already been a considerable degree of focus on the difficulties of transferring health data from the EEA to the US. But what is the situation when such data are transferred between the EEA and AustraliaAustralia? Using the difficulties associated with EEA-US data transfers as a comparison, do health transfers to AustraliaAustralia face the same obstacles as transfers to the US? And what restrictions, if any, does AustraliaAustralia impose on transfers to the EEA? We identify obstacles to data transfers between the EEA and Australia, both in EU and Australian law.