The federal government has opened an eight-week consultation in a bid to understand why screen scraping as a form of data capture persists, despite the existence of other ways for consumers to share data with third-parties.
Assistant treasurer and minister for financial services Stephen Jones told the Intersekt Conference that the consultation is “more about asking questions than stating facts”.
“We want to understand the different ways that screen scraping is used, why it is favoured over other forms of data sharing, and the risks involved for consumers,” Jones said.
Screen scraping occurs when a third-party logs into a customer’s account in order to perform certain actions and collect data.
Jones said he didn’t think “that asking people to hand over their online banking passwords to lenders, mortgage brokers, and others is the best we can do.”
“It’s hard to see a big future for any business model that relies on people sending through their log-in details,” he said.
“I find it hard to accept that we can’t do better for consumers.”
Jones said the government is opening the consultation process following an earlier statutory review, which recommended that screen scraping be banned where the consumer data right (CDR) exists as a viable alternative mechanism to enable data sharing.
The discussion paper [pdf] identifies embedded use of screen scraping “in some industry sectors” as a challenge.
“For example, there appears to be low uptake of the CDR in the credit industry for responsible lending obligations,” it states.
“This could be because the CDR is relatively new, has higher costs compared to screen scraping, or due to the CDR’s requirements around data handling and consent.”
Jones said the government wanted to drive “take up and use cases” for the CDR.
The government has recently drafted rules to expand the CDR to non-bank lending, which Jones believes could boost market competition.
“Having CDR available in non-bank lending may make it quicker and easier for buy now, pay later (BNPL) providers to make the checks that will be necessary to comply with the new, scalable responsible lending obligations that we have proposed for their industry,” he said.
The draft rules and the latest discussion paper are expected to give Australians more pathways to better control household finances and protect their data.
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