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Privacy (Commonwealth Government)

Significant changes were made to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) which came into effect on 12 March 2014.

For detailed information on Commonwealth Government Agencies and Non-Government privacy obligations see the website of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner(OAIC).

The OAIC have produced the following short videos which provide general information:

The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) gives effect to the Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 17). The OECD guidelines cover the collection of personal information, its use and access to and alteration of, the information.

The Act has three areas of operation where the OECD guidelines provide legally binding standards:

  • Australian Privacy Principles - to protect personal information collected by Federal Government departments or agencies. There are strict privacy safeguards that agencies must observe in collecting, storing and using information.

  • Tax File Numbers - to ensure that Tax File Numbers are collected and used only for tax related purposes or to assist the tax agency (Tax File Number Guidelines).

  • Consumer Credit Reporting - privacy protection for consumer credit information, including the type of information that can be collected and the use and disclosure of this information.

It also covers Health Information.

Privacy (Commonwealth Government)  :  Last Revised: Thu Jan 5th 2017
The content of the Law Handbook is made available as a public service for information purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for legal advice. See Disclaimer for details. For free and confidential legal advice in South Australia call 1300 366 424.