The Australian parliament has approved a bill to amend the country's privacy legislation, significantly increasing the maximum penalties to AU$50 million for companies and data controllers who suffered large-scale data breaches.The financial penalty introduced by the new bill is set to whichever is greater:Previously, the penalty for severe data exposures was AU$2.22 million, considered wholly inadequate to incentivize companies to improve their data security mechanisms.The new bill comes in response to a series of recent cyberattacks against Australian companies, including ransomware and network breaches, resulting in the exposure of highly sensitive data for millions of people in the country.Apart from setting higher fines, the new bill also gives greater powers to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) to get more involved in the privacy breach resolution and scope determination process."The updated penalties will bring Australian privacy law into closer alignment with competition and consumer remedies and international penalties under Europe's General Data Protection Regulation," stated Commissioner Angelene Falk."