A new Act to replace the Disability Services Act (1986) – Privacy Notice

Your personal information is protected by law, including under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act).

This privacy collection notice is designed to ensure you are aware of certain matters in relation to the Department of Social Service’s collection of your personal information, as required by the Privacy Act.

What is the purpose of this Consultation

We are currently inviting participants to provide their views on the following consultation: A New Act to Replace the Disability Services Act 1986.

We are seeking your input to help inform the drafting of new legislation to replace the Disability Services Act 1986 (Cth) (the Act). The Act has not been significantly updated in over thirty years. The Department needs your help to make sure that the new Act is fit-for-purpose. It should also align with disability services and supports as they exist today, and be flexible enough to ensure it can adapt to future reforms and recommendations, and remain relevant and effective.

Comments on the proposed changes are welcome from anyone. First and foremost, this includes people with disability, but also includes family members, carers, advocates, service providers, peak bodies and organisations. You can share your own views, or provide feedback on behalf of someone else. You can share your views by answering some, or all of the questions, or you may provide us with your feedback or thoughts without responding to any particular question.

As part of the consultation, you will not be required to provide your name, phone number or address. However, any submissions emailed to the Department directly may include your name, email address and other identity details.

The Department’s intention is for participants to not be identified or be reasonably identifiable. However, this may not always be possible due to various factors (e.g. if you include personal information in free text boxes). Where we are able to identify you (or reasonably identify you) from your response, we will handle your response in accordance with the Privacy Act as it will be ‘personal information’.

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.

Sensitive information is a subset of personal information. It includes information or an opinion about your 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.

What personal information we collect

Through your participation in the consultation, we will collect a range of information. If you can be reasonably identified, this will be your personal information (and some of which could be sensitive information) including:

• your state or territory
• your cultural identity
• whether you are responding as an individual or on behalf of an organisation
• if you are a person with disability, a carer, family member or a friend of a person with disability
• if you work as a service provider, advocate or at a peak body
• your responses to questions that seek your views and have free text boxes.

How we collect your information

Your personal information relating to your personal views will be collected if you choose to participate in the survey. We will do this by:

• collecting information from your responses to the Engage.dss.gov.au survey; and
• collecting information from you directly through an email submission.

Why we collect your personal information

• Your personal information is collected for the purposes of policy development connected to drafting a new Act to replace the Disability Services Act 1986

If you do not provide your personal information (including sensitive information), we will still be able to consider your views as part of the consultation process and your identity will remain anonymous.

Some of the information collected by us from our targeted or public consultations or surveys has research value in developing policies that extend beyond the specific consultation or survey for which it was originally collected. 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

The information you provide in your consultation response, including personal information, may be published and be made publicly available on the DSS Engage website.

We will not provide your personal information to anybody else unless required to by law. We will not disclose your personal information to anybody overseas.

More information

More information about how we handle your personal information is set out in our Privacy Policy. Our Privacy Policy contains information about how you can access any personal information that we hold, and how to seek correction of that personal information. It also contains information about how to make a complaint about a breach of your privacy. If you have any concerns or questions, you can contact us at compaints@dss.gov.au.

Confirmation and consent

This section only applies if you are providing sensitive information as part of your consultation response. Please note that you do not need to provide your sensitive information if you do not wish to do so.

By providing your 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 privacy notice.