Introduction

Information Standard 42 - Information Privacy (IS42) regulates how public sector agencies, such as the Department of Natural Resources and Water (NRW), must manage personal information. IS42 is issued under the authority of sections 22(2) and 56(1) of the Financial Management Standard 1997, and is accompanied by a set of Information Privacy Guidelines.

IS42 is based on eleven Information Privacy Principles (“the IPPs”) (see Appendix A), and requires each public sector agency to prepare and publish a Privacy Plan (the Plan). This Plan outlines the steps that NRW will take over time to comply with the IPPs. This plan will be updated annually to take account of developments within the agency that are subject to the IPPs.

IS42 and the Information Privacy Guidelines are available for download.

The Plan

This Personal Information Privacy Plan 2006-07 (PDF, 190 kB) outlines the steps that NRW will take to meet its obligations under IS42 in relation to the management of personal information.

What is Personal Information?

IS42 defines Personal Information as:

“ ...information or an opinion (including information or an opinion forming part of a database), whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion.”

Personal information is not limited to information that is sensitive or confidential, although the degree of sensitivity or confidentiality may influence the way in which the IPPs are applied in particular circumstances. Many of the IPPs only require that “reasonable steps” be taken with regard to all circumstances, and so, for example, office procedures that protect the details of a licence for which a person has applied may be inadequate to protect that person’s medical records.

As noted at Appendix F, NRW is responsible for a number of public registers. These registers are generally provided for under statute. Furthermore, public registers are excluded from the provisions of IPPs 4 to 11 because, as the Guidelines to the IPPs note:

With the exception of IPPs 1-3 (the collection principles) the IPPs only use the term “record”. “Record” in Information Standard 42 excludes a generally available publication ... Public databases, such as the publicly available parts of electoral rolls, are considered to be generally available publications.

Responsibilities

Overall responsibility for personal information privacy within NRW rests with the Director-General. The responsibility for day-to-day management of the Department’s privacy activities has been delegated to the NRW Privacy Contact Officer who is the Manager, Administrative Review. The Privacy Contact Officer is the first point of contact in NRW for privacy-related issues.

Contact

Advice or information on Personal Information Privacy in NRW may be obtained from:

The Manager
Administrative Review
Department of Natural Resources and Water
GPO Box 2454
Brisbane Qld 4001
Phone (07) 3896 3705
Fax: (07) 3224 2856
Email Admin Review