APP 8, cross-border disclosure and AI: what it requires.

This guide explains what APP 8 requires, the exceptions, the difference between a disclosure and a use, and how each applies to AI tools. It follows the OAIC APP guidelines, Chapter 8, which the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner updated in October 2025, and links to the primary source throughout.

What APP 8 says

APP 8.1 provides that before an APP entity discloses personal information about an individual to an overseas recipient, the entity must take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that the recipient does not breach the APPs, other than APP 1, in relation to that information. Section 16C of the Privacy Act adds the accountability: an entity that discloses personal information to an overseas recipient is accountable for any act or practice of the recipient that would breach the APPs. APP 8 sits alongside APP 6, so the disclosure also has to be for the primary purpose of collection or within an APP 6 exception.

Who is an overseas recipient

A person who receives personal information from an APP entity and is outside Australia and its external territories, is not the disclosing entity, and is not the individual the information is about. Sending information to your own overseas office is a transfer within the entity, so APP 8 does not apply; sending it to an overseas related company, contractor or service provider is a disclosure to a different entity, and it does.

Disclosure or use: the contractor question

The OAIC guidelines say that where an APP entity engages an overseas contractor to perform services on its behalf, in most circumstances providing personal information to that contractor is a disclosure, and APP 8 must be complied with first. In limited circumstances it may instead be a use: for example, providing personal information to an overseas cloud provider for the limited purpose of storage and access, where a binding contract restricts the provider to those purposes, binds any subcontractors the same way, and the entity keeps effective control of the information. Whether an AI provider fits that narrow case depends on what the provider does with the information. A provider that processes your documents to generate answers, retains prompts, or can use content to train models is doing far more than storing it.

The exceptions

APP 8.2 lists the situations in which an entity may disclose to an overseas recipient without taking the reasonable steps, and without the section 16C accountability. The OAIC guidelines describe seven:

What reasonable steps look like

The OAIC says what is reasonable depends on the circumstances, and that an enforceable contract requiring the recipient to handle the information in accordance with the APPs is the usual way to take them. For an AI provider, that means the contract has to cover retention, training, access by staff and subprocessors, onward disclosure, security, and what happens at termination. Section 16C means the Australian entity carries the consequences if the provider falls short, whatever the contract says.

How this applies to AI tools

When a staff member pastes a client letter, a patient summary or a payroll file into a cloud AI service whose infrastructure is overseas, personal information has been disclosed to an overseas recipient. The questions APP 8 then asks are whether reasonable steps were taken first, whether an exception applies, and whether the business accepts accountability for the provider’s handling. For consumer-tier tools, where prompts can be retained and used to train models, the steps have usually not been taken and no exception applies. For enterprise tiers under negotiated terms, the steps may be taken, and the business is still accountable. Our what leaks to AI series shows what that disclosure contains, document by document.

Where deployment posture fits

APP 8 is engaged by disclosure to an overseas recipient. When AI runs on a unit inside the business, no recipient of any kind is involved, and the cross-border framework is not the question; APP 6 and APP 11 still govern how the business uses and secures the information. On Ermos Edge, documents stay on the business’s own instance in an Australian data centre and answers are generated in Australia by a named Australian provider under contract, so no overseas recipient is involved either. Our Privacy Act guide covers APP 6 and APP 11, and on-premise AI explained covers how a unit inside the building works.

Common questions