Privacy breach management and notification

Queensland government agencies¹ must handle personal information in compliance with the privacy principles² in the Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld) (IP Act). A privacy breach occurs when an agency fails to comply with one or more of the privacy principles.

Privacy breaches can result from technical issues, human error, inadequate policies and training, a misunderstanding of the law, or deliberate acts. One of the more common causes of a breach is the loss, theft, or mistaken disclosure of personal information is lost, stolen, or mistakenly disclosed (for example, a USB flash drive is lost or an email is sent to unintended recipients).

This guideline will help agencies manage a privacy breach, including whether to notify individuals whose privacy may have been affected by the breach. A self-assessment tool is also available to guide agency employees through what to do if they believe they have identified a potential privacy breach.

Privacy breach notification obligations

While the IP Act does not impose a mandatory obligation on agencies to notify the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) or affected individuals in the event of a privacy breach, agencies are strongly encouraged to notify OIC. Not only can OIC provide advice on responding to the breach, notification also assists OIC to respond to community enquiries about the breach.

OIC also strongly encourages agencies to notify affected individuals in appropriate circumstances. Doing so is good privacy practice and promotes openness and transparency.

Other obligations

Agencies may also be subject to additional mandatory data breach notification obligations through other legislative requirements, such as the information security incident reporting requirements under the Queensland Government Enterprise Architecture (QGEA), the Commonwealth Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme and the My Health Records Act 2012 (Cth).

Agencies may need to seek legal advice about applicable laws or schemes, and/or their requirements.

Responding to a privacy breach

There are four key steps in responding to a privacy breach:

1. Contain the breach.
2. Evaluate the risk of serious harm.
3. Consider notifying affected individuals and OIC.
4. Prevent a repeat.

Each step is detailed below. Where possible, the first three steps should be undertaken concurrently. The last step includes longer-term solutions and prevention strategies.

Step one: Contain the breach

Take whatever steps possible to contain the breach and minimise any resulting damage. For example, recover the personal information, shut down the system that has been breached, suspend the activity that lead to the privacy breach, revoke or change access codes or passwords.

If a third party is in possession of the personal information and declines to return it, it may be necessary to seek legal advice on what action can be taken to recover the information. When recovering information, ensure copies have not been made or that all copies are recovered.

Be careful when containing the breach not to destroy information that may be needed to investigate the cause of the breach.

Escalate the matter internally as appropriate. Senior management responsible for the area where the breach occurred should immediately be informed of the breach. Depending on the breach's circumstances, it may also be appropriate to inform the media relations unit, the legal services area, the information security manager, the business unit responsible for managing matters of employee misconduct (such as internal audit, ethical standards or Crime and Corruption Commission liaison officer), and/or Director-General and/or Ministerial liaison unit.

In some circumstances, it may be appropriate or necessary to notify a third party of the breach, for example:

• If the breach involves the loss or unauthorised destruction of a public record, entities subject to the Public Records Act 2023 (Qld) must notify the State Archivist.
• If the breach appears to involve theft or other criminal activity, the Queensland Police Service would be notified as a matter of course. QPS has links and assistance to report cybercrime.
• Entities that have obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), or are a credit reporting body, credit provider or Tax File Number (TFN) recipient, may be obliged under the NDB scheme³ to report the breach to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
• Entities subject to the QGEA may be required to report information security incidents to the Queensland Government Chief Information Office, as per the QGEA Information security incident reporting standard.⁴
• Certain entities (such as registered healthcare provider organisations) are required to report data breaches that meet the criterion set out under section 75(1) of the My Health Records Act 2012⁵ to the Australian Digital Health Agency
• If the breach involves a cyber incident that results in a loss and the entity is an agency covered by the Queensland Government Insurance Fund (QGIF), they need to notify the QGIF.
• If the breach involves corrupt conduct within the meaning of the Crime and Corruption Act 2001, the Crime and Corruption Commission must be notified.

Depending on the circumstances of the breach and the information involved, other notifications may be appropriate, such as:

• the agency's elected representative, eg the Minister or Councillor
• relevant financial institutions or credit card companies; or
• professional or other regulatory bodies.

Step two: Evaluate the associated risks

To identify other appropriate actions, assess the type of personal information involved in the breach and the risks associated with the breach. Factors to consider include:

• What type of personal information is involved? Some types of personal information are more likely to cause an individual harm if it is compromised. For example, government-issued identifiers such as Medicare or drivers licence numbers, health information, and financial information such as credit or debit card numbers, will be more significant than names and email addresses of newsletter subscribers. A combination of personal information will typically create a greater potential for harm than a single piece of personal information (for example, an address, date of birth and driver licence number if combined could be used for identity theft).
• Who is affected by the breach? What individuals have been affected by the breach, how many individuals have been affected and do any of the individuals have personal circumstances which may put them at particular risk of harm?³
• What was the cause of the breach? Did the breach occur as part of a targeted attack or through inadvertent oversight? Was it a one-off incident or does it expose a more systemic vulnerability?  What steps have been taken to contain the breach? Has the personal information been recovered?  Is the personal information encrypted or otherwise not readily accessible?
• What is the foreseeable harm to the affected individuals? Who is the recipient of the information? Is there evidence that suggests theft, and was the information the target? Evidence of theft could suggest a greater intention to do harm and heighten the need to provide notification to the individual, as well as law enforcement. What possible use is there for the personal information?  For example, could it be used for identity theft, threats to physical safety, financial loss, workplace bullying, loss of employment opportunities, and humiliation or damage to reputation?  What is the risk of further access, use or disclosure, including via media or online?

Agencies can use the Privacy Breach Self Assessment Tool to assist in assessing the risk of harm to individuals as a result of a privacy breach.

Step three: Consider notifying affected individuals

The IP Act does not specifically require an agency to notify individuals who have been affected by a privacy breach. However, a failure to notify may compound the damage for the individuals affected by the breach and reflect negatively on an agency’s reputation. Notification can also demonstrate a commitment to open and transparent governance.

In general, if a data breach creates a risk of harm to an individual, the affected individuals should be notified. Prompt notification in these cases can help mitigate the damage by enabling individuals to take steps to protect themselves.

There are occasions where notification can be counter-productive. For example, notifying individuals about a privacy breach which is unlikely to result in an adverse outcome for the individual may cause unnecessary anxiety and de-sensitise individuals to a significant privacy breach.

Factors to consider when deciding whether notification is appropriate include:

• What is the risk of harm to the individual (as determined in the previous step)?
• What steps has the agency taken to date to avoid or remedy any actual or potential harm?
• What is the ability of the individual to take further steps to avoid or remedy harm?  For example, can the individual have a new credit card number issued to avoid potential financial harm?⁶
• Even if the individual would not be able to take steps to fix the situation, is the information that has been compromised sensitive, or likely to cause humiliation or embarrassment for the individual?
• Are there any applicable legislative provisions or contractual obligations that requires the agency to notify affected individuals?

The logistics of notifying affected individuals will depend in large part on the type and scale of the breach, as well as immediately practical issues such as having contact details for the affected individuals. Considerations include the following.

When to notify

In general, individuals affected by the breach should be notified as soon as practicable. Circumstances where it may be appropriate to delay notification include where notification would compromise an investigation into the cause of the breach or reveal a software vulnerability.⁴

How to notify

It is recommended that affected individuals be notified directly, eg by telephone, letter, email⁵ or in person. Indirect notification—eg by posting information on the agency’s website, placing a public notice in a newspaper, or by way of media release—should generally only be used where the contact information of affected individuals is not known, or where direct notification is prohibitively expensive or could cause further harm (for example, by alerting a person who stole a laptop as to the value of the information on it).

What to say

Tailor the content of the notification advice to the circumstances of the particular breach. Content of a notification could include:

• information about the breach, including when it happened
• a description of what personal information has been disclosed
• assurances (as appropriate) about what personal information has not been disclosed
• what the agency is doing to control or reduce the harm
• what steps the person can take to further protect themselves and what the agency will do to assist people with this
• contact details within the agency where questions or requests for information can be directed; and
• the right to lodge a privacy complaint with the agency and the option to bring their complaint to the OIC if they then are dissatisfied with the subsequent response from the agency.

Where a risk of harm to the individual has been identified, agencies are strongly encouraged to also notify OIC.

Step four: Prevent a repeat

Once the breach has been contained, the circumstances of the breach should be investigated to determine all relevant causes and identify short or long-term measures that can be taken prevent a reoccurrence.

Preventative actions could include a:

• security audit of both physical and technical security controls
• review of policies and procedures
• review of employee training practices; or
• review of contractual obligations with contracted service providers.