PIAC made a submission to the Australian Treasury’s Consumer Data Right for the Energy Sector

PIAC made a submission to the Australian Treasury’s Consumer Data Right (CDR) in the energy sector, Proposals for further consultation August 2021 Consultation Paper. PIAC supports the intent of the CDR to allow consumers the right to access their data and authorise its wider use for their benefit. However, PIAC remains concerned the proposed  peer-to-peer (P2P) model only enables access to data from consumers’ time with their current retailer, puts control of energy consumers’ data in the hands of energy retailers and automatically opts consumers in to sharing their joint account data. 

PIAC supports the proposed inclusion of all NEM retail customers, for all data sets and considers it is more appropriate for energy specific requirements for the correction of AEMO held data to be handled via National Energy Market (NEM) processes rather than the non-sector specific requirements under the Competition and Consumer Act. 

PIAC is concerned that enabling CDR to apply to the largest three retailers first could see advantages for these retailers above smaller retailers.