Privacy Notice
Your personal information is protected by law, including under the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act).
The Department of Social Services (Department, we, us, our), collects personal information about individuals for a range of purposes to enable it to carry out its functions. More information about how we handle your personal information is set out in our Privacy Policy.
This Privacy Collection Notice is designed to ensure you are aware of certain matters in relation to the Department’s collection and handling of your personal information, as required by the Privacy Act.
Purpose of this consultation
The Department is inviting people to subscribe to receive information and updates, register their interest in attending an online forum (webinar) and/or make a submission providing feedback to the questions posed in the webinars on recent disability employment-related recommendations as part of DES reform (this Consultation).
What is ‘personal information’ and ‘sensitive information’?
‘Personal information’ is information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable. This applies whether the personal information is true or not or recorded in a material form or not. For example, personal information can include an individual’s name, signature, residential address, phone number, email address, date of birth, photographs, employment information, location information from mobile devices and internet protocol addresses.
‘Sensitive information’ is a subset of personal information. It includes information or an opinion about an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of associations or unions, sexual orientation or practices, criminal record, or health, genetic or biometric information. Health information includes any information regarding whether an individual has a disability and the nature of their disability.
Who is collecting your personal information?
Your personal information is being collected by the Department and by Services Australia, who will be assisting the Department with collecting information during the Consultation.
The Department does not use any third party subscription service provider. This means the Department will directly collect your personal information for the purpose of your inclusion on the lists to register for a webinar or receive updates.
What personal information we collect
Through your participation in this Consultation, we may collect a range of personal information, some of which could be sensitive information.
Individuals
The personal information we will require includes your email address and any comments submitted in respond to this Consultation.
The personal information we will ask for, but is optional to provide, includes:
- your name
- your location (that is, city / suburb, state and postcode)
- whether you are a participant in employment services
- disability status.
If you do not provide your personal information (including sensitive information, such as the optional information we ask for), we will still be able to consider your views as part of this Consultation process and your identity will remain anonymous.
Organisations
The personal information we will require you to share includes the name of the organisation you represent, your work email address and any comments submitted in respond to this Consultation.
The personal information we will ask for, but is optional to provide, includes:
- your name
- your organisation’s location (that is, city / suburb, state and postcode)
- type of organisation you represent.
If you are making a submission on behalf of an organisation, and do not provide the name of your organisation and a work email address, you are unable to make a submission on behalf of the named organisation. You may, alternatively, wish to make a submission as an individual.
Where you make a submission on behalf of an organisation, you are confirming that you have authority to do so.
How we collect your personal information
The Department collects information provided while registering for a webinar, subscribing for updates or submitting your response to the Consultation (which is undertaken through the Department’s website: Engage.dss.gov.au).
We may also collect additional personal information from you, if you include the personal information in any comments or attachments provided as part of your submission.
Why we collect your personal information
Your personal information is collected for the purposes of informing this Consultation.
We will use your feedback, thoughts and ideas to inform the design of new disability employment service.
Submissions collected as part of this Consultation will be summarised in an aggregated and de-identified format into a report published on the Engage.dss.gov.au website.
Submissions will also be published on the Engage.dss.gov.au website, where you have provided your consent for publication. Prior to publication of your submission, the Department will take steps to remove any contact details and personal information related to other individuals or organisations.
Some of the information collected by us as part of this Consultation may have value in developing other policies for the new program. Where this is the case, the information that we collect from this Consultation may be used for our other research purposes. In doing so, we will apply the Australian Privacy Principles to the handling of any personal information.
Who we disclose your personal information to
Your response and any personal information or sensitive information collected from this Consultation process is accessible to Department staff involved in the relevant Consultation process.
We may disclose your submission, including your personal information, to the following people, organisations or third parties:
- entities contracted to provide services to assist us with this Consultation (which may include entities contracted to the Department to facilitate the webinar or analyse and report on Consultation responses and consultation submissions in an aggregated way);
- Services Australia, for the purposes of assisting the Department to administer DSS Engage and providing the Department with other information technology services; and
- other parties where the disclosure is required or authorised by law.
All entities contracted by us are subject to strict confidentiality, privacy, and security obligations. If you have any concerns about the disclosure of your information to these entities, please contact complaints@dss.gov.au.
Where you have consented to the publication of your Consultation response, we may first redact parts of your response before disclosing or publishing it, as appropriate. This may occur in circumstances where your response contains information that is not relevant to this Consultation, where it contains personal or sensitive information, where it could potentially defame others, where it is offensive in nature, or where it contains operationally sensitive information.
Any demographic information you provide in your Consultation response will only be used for internal analysis, and will not be published, except as aggregated statistics.
If we receive information in response to this Consultation that indicates there is a risk of harm to the respondent or another person, we are required to report it under Australian Law. This may include referral to the relevant state or territory authorities, in line with the relevant state, territory and Commonwealth legislation.
Storage of your personal information
Storage of personal information (and the disposal of information when no longer required) is managed in accordance with the Australian Government records management regime, including the Archives Act 1983, agency-specific records authorities and general records authorities. This ensures your personal information is held securely by the Department.
All personal information collected by the Department is stored on Services Australia’s cloud storage, on servers located in Australia. Services Australia and the Department retains effective control over any personal information held on our cloud, and the information is handled in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles.
Any information disclosed to third parties (such as entities contracted to provide services to assist us with the Consultation) will be handled in accordance with the Privacy Act and stored in accordance with agreed security protocols.
More information
The Department’s Privacy Policy contains more information about how we handle personal information, how you can access personal information that we hold about you, and how you can seek correction of that personal information. It also contains information about how to make a complaint about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles, as set out in the Privacy Act.
If you have any concerns or questions, you can contact us at complaints@dss.gov.au.
Confirmation and consent
By providing personal information as part of your Consultation response, you consent to the Department’s collection and handling of personal information in accordance with this collection notice and the Department’s Privacy Policy.
Please note that you do not need to provide sensitive information if you do not wish to do so.
By providing sensitive information as part of your Consultation response, you consent to the Department collecting your sensitive information and handling your sensitive information in accordance with this collection notice and the Department’s Privacy Policy.