New data laws announced after Optus breach

The proposed amendments would let the companies temporarily share key information such as drivers licence, Medicare and passport numbers with financial service firms to let them better monitor and safeguard breaches.

The government said Optus would also be able to share identifiers with Commonwealth, state and territory agencies to try and prevent fraud following the data breach, which left millions of customers' personal details exposed to hackers.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the move strengthened safeguards that would protect in the case of a similar breach.

"What this is all about is to try and reduce the impact of this data breach on Optus customers and to enable financial institutions to implement enhanced safeguards and monitoring," she told reporters.

"We take people's personal information and the protection of that very seriously."