CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA (AP) – Australia yesterday proposed tougher penalties for companies that fail to protect customers’ personal data after two major cybersecurity breaches left millions vulnerable to criminals.

The penalties for serious breaches of the Privacy Act would increase from AUD2.2 million (USD1.4 million) now to AUD50 million (USD32 million) under amendments to be introduced to Parliament next week, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said.

A company could also be fined the value of 30 per cent of its revenues over a defined period if that amount exceeded AUD50 million (USD32 million).

Dreyfus said “big companies could face penalties up to hundreds of millions of dollars” under the new law. “It is a very, very substantial increase in the penalties,” Dreyfus told reporters.

“It’s designed to make companies think. It’s designed to be a deterrent so that companies will protect the data of Australians,” he added.

Parliament resumes on Tuesday for the first time since mid-September. Since Parliament last sat, unknown hackers stole personal data from 9.8 million customers of Optus, Australia’s second-largest wireless telecommunications carrier.

The theft has left more than one-third of Australia’s population at heightened risk of identity theft and fraud. Unknown cybercriminals this week demanded ransom from Australia’s largest health insurer, Medibank, after claiming to have stolen 200 gigabytes of customers’ data including medical diagnoses and treatments.

Medibank has 3.7 million customers. The company said the hackers had proved they hold the personal records of at least 100.

The thieves have reportedly threatened to make public medical conditions of high-profile Medibank customers. Dreyfus said both breaches had shown “existing safeguards are inadequate”.

As well as failing to protect personal information, the government is concerned that companies are unnecessarily holding too much customer data for too long in the hope of monetising that information.

“We need to make sure that when a data breach occurs the penalty is large enough, that it’s a really serious penalty on the company and can’t just be disregarded or ignored or just paid as a part of a cost of doing business,” said Dreyfus, who hopes the proposed amendments will become law in the final four weeks that Parliament will sit this year.

Any new penalties will not be retroactive and will not effect Optus or Medibank.

AP – Shares of social media companies tumbled on Friday after a slew of news in the sector that concerned investors, including a report that Elon Musk may cut almost 75 per cent of Twitter’s workforce and Snap’s muted fourth-quarter outlook.

Musk has told prospective investors in his Twitter purchase that he plans to cut nearly 75 per cent of Twitter’s employee base of 7,500 workers, leaving the company with a skeleton crew, according to a Thursday report by The Washington Post.

A Delaware judge has given Musk and Twitter until October 28 to work out details of the proposed USD44 billion deal.

Otherwise, there will be a trial in November.

Shares of Twitter fell USD2.55, or almost five per cent, to close on Friday at USD49.89.

Elsewhere in the sector, Snap Inc’s stock slid more than 28 per cent after the company behind Snapchat gave a lackluster forecast for the fourth quarter and its third-quarter revenue missed Wall Street’s view.

Snap reported third-quarter revenue of USD1.13 billion, below the USD1.15 billion that analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research expected.

While the Santa Monica, California-based company said in a letter to investors that it wasn’t giving a formal fourth-quarter outlook, it did say that it’s highly likely that year-over-year revenue growth will slow during the period.

Snap said its internal forecasts are for year-over-year revenue growth to be about flat.

A JPMorgan analyst note said that Snap is experiencing weaker demand due to macro pressures, platform policy changes and competition.

“We appreciate management’s efforts to control what they can – cutting costs and doubling down on more resilient performance-based ads – but trends remain choppy, and the macro backdrop is likely even tougher into 2023,” the note said.

Adding to the mix are concerns about the way social media platforms are being used as the mid-term elections near.

While platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube said they’ve expanded their work to detect and stop harmful claims that could suppress the vote or even lead to violence, a review shows they’re still playing catchup with 2020, when then-president Donald Trump’s lies about the election he lost to Joe Biden helped fuel an insurrection at the United States Capitol.

Shares of Meta Platforms Inc, parent company of Facebook, fell 1.2 per cent. The flurry of news weighed on others in the sector as well, including Pinterest Inc, which ended down 6.4 per cent.

HONOLULU (AP) – Hawaiian Airlines will operate 10 cargo planes for Amazon.com starting next fall under a deal that could eventually involve more planes and give Amazon a 15-per-cent stake in the airline.

The airline’s parent company, Hawaiian Holdings Inc, said on Friday that it will fly and maintain an “initial fleet” of 10 leased Airbus A330-300 jets for the retail giant.

The fleet could grow “depending on Amazon’s future business needs”, the company said.

Hawaiian said it issued warrants that Amazon can exercise over the next nine years and acquire up to 15 per cent of Hawaiian stock.

Shares of Hawaiian Holdings jumped 13 per cent in afternoon trading on Friday.

When travel plunged and consumer spending spiked early in the pandemic, airlines began carrying more cargo and demand for freighter planes grew.

More recently, the cargo business has cooled off as consumer spending shifted away from goods toward services including travel, and airlines have been stuck with excess cargo capacity.

Global demand for cargo fell 8.3 per cent in August compared with a year earlier, the International Air Transport Association reported this month.

Hawaiian said it won’t use any of its current planes to serve Amazon.

Instead, Amazon’s air division will lease the first 10 planes – which will be converted from passenger jets to freighters – from leasing company Altavair.

“This relationship provides a catalyst to grow our business and the unique opportunity to diversify our revenue sources while capitalising on our established strengths,” said Hawaiian Chief Executive Officer Peter Ingram.

The A330-300 is a large, two-aisle plane that has about 330 seats when used for passenger flights.

Director of Amazon’s air fleet Philippe Karam said the jets will be the largest and newest planes flying for Amazon Air.

Amazon brands its fleet as Prime Air, and it has struck previous deals with both passenger and cargo airlines.

In 2019, Sun Country Airlines announced it would operate 10 converted Boeing 737 aircraft for Amazon.

Under a deal with Atlas Air, Amazon took warrants that could be converted into a 20-per-cent stake in the cargo carrier.