Privacy

The Privacy Act 1988

The Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) imposes privacy obligations in relation to the storage of personal information held in the records of Commonwealth Government agencies and organisations.  These obligations relate to the collection, storage, access, use and disclosure of personal information.  ‘Personal information’ is information in any form about an identifiable, living individual.

The Office of the Renewable Energy Regular (ORER) respects your personal information and your right to privacy. This privacy notice applies to the ORER web site only. This policy tells you how ORER collects information from you and how we store, use and disclose it.

Information collected

ORER collects personal information that you choose to give us, for example when you fill in a form, email us or ask as to contact you after visiting our website.. We understand that anonymity is an important element of privacy. Unless there is some legal or practical reason requiring you identify yourself, in some cases you may have the option of not identifying yourself when transacting with ORER. For example, we do not collect identifiable personal information about you if you only browse this web site.

If you visit the ORER web site to read or download information, we record, through our log files, the following information for statistical purposes:

• your server address
• your top level domain name (e.g. .gov, .com, .edu, .org, .au, .nz etc)
• the pages you accessed and the documents you downloaded
• the search terms you used
• the date and time you visited the site
• the previous site you visited
• your operating system (e.g. Windows, Macintosh)
• the type of browser you use (e.g. Internet Explorer)

No attempt will be made to identify users or their browsing activities except, in the unlikely event of an investigation, where a law enforcement agency may exercise a warrant to inspect the Internet Service Provider's logs.

Use and disclosure of your personal information

The use of the term "personal information" in this privacy notice means any information about you as an individual from which your identity is apparent or can be reasonably ascertained.
We do not use your information nor do we share information about you with other government agencies, other organisations, or other persons without your consent unless it:

• it is used for the purpose for which it was obtained or for a directly related purpose;
• is necessary to provide you with a service that you have requested;
• is required or authorised by law;
• is reasonably necessary for enforcement of the criminal law or protection of the public revenue; or
• will prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to somebody's health.

Small-Scale Technology Certificate (STC) Clearing House

ORER is required to collect some personal information about you if you wish to access or use the small-scale technology certificates (STC) Clearing House.  For further information about the nature of the personal information required from you, please see the Privacy Impact Assessment (PDF - 139 KB).

Email management

We will only record your email address if you send us a message or you subscribe to a mailing list. Any personal information you provide to us, including your email address will only be used or disclosed for the purpose for which you have provided it (except in the circumstances listed above). Your personal information will not be added to a mailing list or used or disclosed for any other purpose without your consent.

Cookies

Cookies are pieces of information that a web site can transfer to an individual's computer.

Parts of the ORER web site may store cookies on your browser in order to better serve you when you next visit the site. We do not use cookies or other internet technologies to collect or store personal information unless you have opted in to such a feature.

Access to and amendment of your personal information

You may gain access to personal information about you that we hold, subject to any applicable exceptions under the Privacy Act.  You can also contact us to correct any errors or delete information we have about you if it is incorrect, out of date, irrelevant or misleading and we will take reasonable steps to amend it. 

If we refuse to provide you with access to the information being sought or we disagree with your view about the accuracy, completeness or currency of the information, we will provide reasons for our refusal.

You may opt out of any further contact from us.

To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, we will need evidence of your identity before we can give you access to information about you or change it.

Security

ORER maintains the same level of security for personal information collected in an electronic format as it does for that collected in paper format. We use a range of physical and electronic security measures to protect personal information from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.  These measures include but are not limited to restricted physical access to our office, security containers, firewalls, secure databases, computer user identifiers and passwords.

However, if you are providing personal information via an email or an online form you should be aware that there are some risks to transmitting data via the Internet. ORER is not currently using encryption for secure data transfer.  ORER has other methods of receiving information, such as normal mail, facsimile, telephone and face to face.

Links to external web sites

The ORER web site contains links to other web sites. The Office of the Renewable Energy Regulator is not responsible for the content and the privacy practices of other web sites and encourages you to examine each web site's privacy policy and make your own decisions regarding the accuracy, reliability and correctness of material and information found.

Obligations for Australian Government agencies

With respect to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information, we are bound by the Information Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988. We also follow the Guidelines for Federal and ACT Government web sites issued by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has issued a number of Guidelines, including the Guidelines to the information privacy principles, which apply to all Australian Government departments and agencies.

For more information about privacy obligations for Australian Government agencies please visit:

• Government guidelines 
• Guidelines for Federal and ACT Government web sites 
• Guidelines to information privacy principles 
• Information privacy principles under the Privacy Act 1988 
• Office of the Privacy Commissioner 
• Privacy Act 1998 

Multi-layered privacy notices

A multi layered privacy notices format is used by the Office of the Renewable Regulator. For more information about the multi-layered privacy notice format used in the ORER web site please visit:

• Center for Information Policy Leadership 
• Berlin Privacy Notices Memorandum 
• European Commission - Art. 29 Data Protection Working Party 
• Getting in on the act: the review of the private sector provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 
• Getting in on the act: the review of the private sector provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 - recommendations: control over personal information 
• International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (25th: Sydney, 2003) - privacy notice resolution resources