Privacy policy

Information Privacy and the Office of the Information Commissioner

Queensland has privacy legislation which applies to the Queensland public sector—the Information Privacy Act 2009 (IP Act). The IP Act contains privacy principles which set out how agencies may and must handle personal information. Personal information means any information about an identifiable person.

The Office of the Information Commissioner’s (OIC) Privacy Plan (PDF, 170KB) sets out details of the types of personal information we hold and how we handle this information.

Website privacy and security statement

OIC is committed to protecting the privacy of our website users. We understand and appreciate that visitors to, and users of, this website, are concerned about their privacy and the confidentiality and security of information they provide to us.

Information collected

As a general rule, we do not collect personal information about you when you visit our site. When you visit our site to read or download information, our web measurement tool and Internet Service Providers record only anonymous information for statistical purposes including:

  • your server and IP address
  • the name of the top level domain (for example, .gov, .com, .edu, .au)
  • the type of browser used
  • the date and time you accessed the site
  • the pages accessed and documents downloaded
  • the previous site you visited.

These statistics provide information to assist us to make improvements to the content and structure of our website.

We may also collect personal information that you choose to give us via online forms, blog comments or by email for example:

  • You may subscribe to electronic mailing lists and RSS feeds
  • You may subscribe to participate in blog discussions
  • You may register to participate in training or an event through our online forms
  • You may also make applications for external review and privacy complaints using online forms provided by OIC.

Our website subscription service is delivered by Vision6. A subscriber's email address is collected by Vision6 in order to deliver requested news, updates and alerts. You can read the Vision6 Privacy Policy here.

Email correspondence

Your email address details will not be added to a mailing list (unless you so request), nor will we disclose these details to third parties without your consent, unless required by law. Email messages may be monitored by our information technology staff for system trouble-shooting and maintenance purposes.

Online training courses

When you undertake one of the OIC's online training courses your contact details are collected for the purpose of awarding you a certificate of completion and to enable you to receive course evaluation feedback. OIC will also use information about your participation in the course to monitor the effectiveness of the training course and to inform higher-level general reports on OIC’s training activities. These reports are published as part of OIC’s accountability obligations but your personal details will not be included in the reports.

Cookies

Cookies are text files that a website can transfer to your computer when you access information on that site. Cookies allow websites to recognise you as you browse their website.

OIC uses Google Analytics to gather statistics about how the website is accessed. Google Analytics uses cookies to gather information for the purpose of providing statistical reporting.

The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers located outside of Australia. No personally identifying information is recorded or provided to Google. If you are logged in to the Office's website, information about your user account is NOT linked to data recorded by Google Analytics and is NOT provided to Google.

Information gathered using the Google Analytics cookie includes:

  • the number of visitors to OIC’s website
  • how visitors arrive at OIC’s website, for example, did they type the address in directly, follow a link from another webpage, or arrive via a search engine?
  • the number of times each page is viewed and for how long
  • time and date of visit
  • geographical location of the visitor
  • information about what browser was used to view the OIC’s website and the operating system of the computer
  • information about whether the browser supports Java and Flash
  • the speed of the user's internet connection.

View a Google Analytics example report (PDF, 106.36 KB)

Public records

Email correspondence, blog comments and information provided via webforms can constitute public records and can be retained as required by the Public Records Act 2002 and other relevant legislation.

Use and disclosure

We will only use personal information collected via our website for the purposes for which it was given to us and for related, internal management purposes.

We do not share personal information about you with other government agencies, organisations or anyone else unless one of the following applies:

  • you have consented
  • you’d expect us to, or we have told you we will
  • it is required or authorised by law
  • it will prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to somebody’s life or health
  • the disclosure is reasonably necessary for law enforcement, or for the protection of public revenue.

Security

We take strong precautions to protect your data from loss, unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure, and against other misuse. However, this site does not provide facilities for securely transmitting information across the Internet.

Links to other sites

This website contains links to other websites. OIC is not responsible for the content and privacy practices of other websites.