PRIVACY (COMMONWEALTH GOVT)

Information Privacy Principles
The Privacy Commissioner
Tax File Numbers
Credit Reporting
Data Matching

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:

Information 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.