Privacy

Electronic communications and technologies raise many significant information privacy and surveillance issues.

Information privacy may be defined as the claim of individuals, groups or institutions to determine when, how and to what extent information about them is communicated to others. In essence, information privacy is the individual's right to control what happens with personal information about them.

Privacy issues relating to personal data arise from insecure electronic transmissions, data trails and logs, online transactions and tracking and surveillance technologies. Privacy invasion issues arise from data matching (the process of wholesale cross checking of data from one source against another source such as tax and social security data) and personal profile extraction processes that use this data alone or in combination with other publicly available data.

The laws

In Australia, there is no general right of an individual to privacy. Laws such as confidential information and trespass may sometimes be used to protect privacy.

In the public sector, Australia has had privacy legislation since 1988. The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) attempts to provide a guideline for use of personal information by the public sector, through its embodiment of 11 Information Privacy Principles (IPPs). These Principles deal with the collection, solicitation, storage, security, access, alteration, use and the disclosure of personal information.

In late 2000 the Privacy Act 1988 was amended by the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 (Cth). These amendments create 10 National Privacy Principles (NPPs) that apply to certain parts of the private sector, notable exemptions being small business and employee records. The Act took effect from 21 December 2001.

State laws

The NSW Office of the Privacy Commissioner is created by the Privacy and Personal Information Act 1988 (NSW), and confers upon the NSW Privacy Commissioner powers concerning research, advice and handling of complaints about breaches of privacy. NSW has its own Information Privacy Principles (IPPs), which reflect the Federal IPPs. There is also an obligation for the NSW public sector to develop and implement Privacy Management Plans when dealing with personal information.

The Information Privacy Act 2000 (Vic) creates the office of the Privacy Commissioner of Victoria. The Act sets out 10 Information Privacy Principles, which are almost identical to the Federal NPPs, but are applicable only to the public sector in Victoria.

No other States or Territories have privacy specific legislation.

Privacy

The laws

State laws

Legislation

Resources

Links