Information Privacy Principles

The Act sets out rules of conduct called Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) which establish standards for the collection and handling of 'personal information' (as defined by the Act) by Commonwealth agencies. The IPPs comprise a code of conduct for privacy of personal information in areas [Privacy Act 1988 s 14] including:

the manner and purpose of collection
requests from individuals, or from other people, agencies or bodies
storage and security of information
availability of information and access to it
alteration of information held by agencies
obligation to maintain accurate information
the permitted uses of information
limits on agencies disclosing information held by them.

Under the Act agencies must comply with the IPPs [s 16] and a breach of an IPP by an agency is deemed to be an interference with the privacy of an individual [s 13]. The Privacy Commissioner may issue a public interest determination to allow practices which would otherwise be a breach (eg. publication of Telstra's white pages telephone directory).