At Management Consultants Australia, your privacy is important to us.  Please read our full policy below:

The purpose of a privacy policy is to communicate clearly the personal information handling practices of an agency or organisation. Privacy policies enhance the transparency of the operations of agencies and organisations. They also give individuals a better and more complete understanding of the sort of personal information an agency or organisation holds and the way it handles that information. Our privacy policy has been developed with these aims in mind.

Is the development of a privacy policy a requirement of the Privacy Act 1988?

Australian and ACT Government agencies must comply with the Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) in the Privacy Act. As an Australian Government agency, we are therefore required to comply with the IPPs. Under the IPPs, agencies are not required to develop a privacy policy but are required to maintain a record of what files they have that contain personal information, for inclusion in a yearly Personal Information Digest (described below).

Private sector organisations that are covered by the Privacy Act must comply with the National Privacy Principles (NPPs). Under the NPPs, these organisations are required to have clearly expressed policies on their management of personal information.

Despite the different requirements of the IPPs and NPPs, we consider it good privacy practice for all agencies and organisations to develop and display a privacy policy and this is why we have one.

IPPs and NPPs – what’s the difference?

The IPPs and the NPPs are contained in the Privacy Act and set out rules for the handling of personal information. The main difference between the two sets of principles is that the IPPs cover Australian and ACT Government agencies while the NPPs cover much of the private sector.1

Both the IPPs and the NPPs contain similar rules about the collection, use, disclosure and storage of personal information. However, there are some differences. For example, the NPPs include principles regulating the use of government identifiers, anonymity, transborder data flows of personal information outside Australia and the handling of sensitive information. Private sector organisations will need to take these differences into account when drafting their own privacy policies.