Privacy and Personal Information

Receiving, storing and managing personal information is a growing area of law. Knowing how to identify personal information and having a basic understanding of the laws surrounding potential privacy issues before they arise is an essential element of running a contemporary business.

There are five key concepts that are fundamental to understanding privacy law. They are:

• 1. Private information

• 2. Identify

• 3. Consent

• 4. Purpose

• 5. Collection

Information which is protected by the Privacy Act (Act) is categorised as “personal” or “sensitive”.

“Personal information” is defined in the Act as: “…information or an opinion, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.”

Information such as name, address, telephone number, age, bank details, height, weight, profession, income, car owned, pets owned, coffee order, etc. all count as “personal information”.

Broadly speaking, personal information can be broken down to two questions:

• 1. Is this information about a person?

• 2. Can this person be identified from the information?

If the answer to both is “yes”, then the information must be handled according to the Australian Privacy Principles.

For businesses, an important element of handling personal information is to have a well drafted Privacy Policy and to properly implement that policy. The lawyers at Hope Earle would be happy to discuss your privacy needs with you.