Review Privacy Notice
Your personal information is protected by law, including the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the strict confidentiality provisions of the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Act 2018 (Redress Act).
The Department of Social Services (Department, we, us, our) collects personal information about individuals for a range of purposes to enable us to carry out our functions. This privacy notice aims to ensure you are aware of certain matters in relation to our collection of your personal information, as required by the Privacy Act, for the purposes of consulting with stakeholders for the Eighth Anniversary Review (the Review) of the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse (the Scheme). The Department has engaged an independent reviewer to assist the Department to conduct the Review.
The Redress Act and Privacy Act set out how your information can be collected, stored, accessed, used and disclosed.
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 is the purpose of the collection?
The Review will collect personal and sensitive information to enable stakeholders to share their experiences and perspectives as part of consultations informing the Eighth Anniversary Review of the Scheme. The information will be used to assess how the Scheme has operated in practice and to support the Review being undertaken under section 192 of the Redress Act.
What we collect
The Department and the independent reviewer may collect personal and sensitive information you choose to provide as part of the consultation. You do not need to share personal or sensitive information and should only do so if you choose to.
How we manage and share your personal and sensitive information
The Department intends to use the information collected in the consultations to:
- inform the findings of the Review;
- prepare a report for the Minister of Social Services which may be made public.
We will seek your consent if we intend to use any of your information in public reporting, including quotes from the consultations.
The Department may also use and disclose personal information collected as part of the consultations if permitted or required by the Redress Act. This may include for example informing the Minister for Social Services about the Review, for the purposes of the Scheme or to keep children safe.
Information collected as part of this Review will be stored on Department of Social Services systems, including the Department’s approved recordkeeping system, with access restricted to authorised personnel only.
Records relating to the Review are subject to Commonwealth record-keeping requirements and are retained for extended periods in accordance with the National Archives General Records Authority 41. Depending on the type of record, this may include long-term or permanent retention.
Destruction is only permitted in accordance with authorised records management processes, including assessment against approved records authorities and secure, irreversible destruction methods. Researchers do not have discretion to destroy data outside these authorised processes.
Once information is submitted and captured as an official record, it is subject to legal and accountability obligations and cannot generally be deleted.
Intellectual Property for the project data and copyright will be held by the Department.
If you submit information through an online form, system information such as an IP address may also be collected as part of normal website operation. You can find out more information about our use of analytics and how to minimise the amount of information collected about you in our privacy policy.
Overseas disclosure
Our websites use Google Analytics, a service which transmits website traffic data to Google servers outside of Australia. This applies to general use of Department websites and does not involve the content of submissions you provide as part of the Review.
Reporting abuse to keep children safe
If we receive information as part of these consultations that indicates there is a risk of harm to you or another person, we may be required or authorised to report it under Australian Law. This may include referral to the relevant State, Territory or Commonwealth authorities.
If you think the information you wish to provide may require the Scheme to make a report, you can contact us to discuss what these reporting obligations may mean for you.
More information
The Department’s Privacy Policy contains more information about how we handle personal information, 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 the Australian Privacy Principles, as set out in the Privacy Act.
If you have any concerns regarding participating in the consultation, you may contact the Eighth Anniversary Review team at redressreview@dss.gov.au.