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Privacy

The NSW Government website is maintained by the New South Wales government's Government Chief Information Office (GCIO). This Privacy Policy applies to all the publicly accessible pages on the NSW Government site located at http://www.nsw.gov.au and to all the publicly accessible pages listed in the search results web pages. GCIO does not have any responsibility for the privacy policies or practices of third party sites linked to the NSW Government site. If you have any questions about the NSW Government site, or the application of this Privacy Policy or a request for access to information held please contact Trevor Waters, Manager NSW Government, Level 21, McKell Building, 2-24 Rawson Place, Sydney, phone 9372 8274 and email trevor.waters@commerce.nsw.gov.au

Users of the NSW Government site are entitled to expect that any information as a result of that use will be treated within the terms of the New South Wales government's privacy responsibilities and obligations. The New South Wales government's privacy practices are regulated by the New South Wales Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1988.

What information do we collect?

When you look at the pages on the NSW Government site, our computers automatically record information that identifies, for each page accessed:

  • the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the machine which has accessed it; your top-level domain name (for example .com, .gov, .au, .uk etc.);
  • the address of your server;
  • the date and time of your visit to the site;
  • the pages accessed and documents downloaded;
  • the previous site visited; and
  • the type of browser and operating system you have used.

How do we use the information collected?

The information collected during each visit is aggregated with similar logged information and published in reports in order for GCIO to identify patterns of usage of the site. This will assist us in improving the NSW Government site and the services offered on it.

GCIO will not disclose or publish information that identifies individual machines, or potentially identifies sub-groupings of addresses, without consent or otherwise in accordance with the New South Wales Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1988.

What exceptions are there to this rule?

GCIO will collect, use and disclose more extensive information than stated above in the following circumstances:

  • unauthorised attempts to access files which are not published NSW Government pages;
  • unauthorised tampering or interference with files published on the NSW Government site;
  • unauthorised attempts to index the contents of the NSW Government site by other sites;
  • attempts to intercept messages of other users of the NSW Government site;
  • communications which are defamatory, abusive, vilify individuals or groups or which give rise to a suspicion that an offence is being committed; and
  • attempts to otherwise compromise the security of the web server, breach the laws of the State of New South Wales or Commonwealth of Australia, or interfere with the enjoyment of the NSW Government site by other users.

GCIO reserves the right to make disclosures to relevant authorities where the use of the NSW Government site raises a suspicion that an offence is being, or has been, committed.

In the event of an investigation, GCIO will provide access to data to any law enforcement agency that may exercise a warrant to inspect our logs.

Is the information stored securely?

Yes. Information collected is stored in an appropriately secure format and held by GCIO for archival purposes. When the information is no longer required for the purposes for which it was collected it is deleted.

What will we do with information provided in Feedback?

GCIO provides feedback facilities on the NSW Government site to allow users to provide input into the future development of the site and to comment on the provision of service by the Office.

The provision of personal details on feedback is optional.

Users may provide personal details for the purpose of receiving a reply to their feedback. This information will only be used for the purpose for which it was provided. We will not add your email address or name to any mailing list.

GCIO may publish aggregated information about feedback on the site, to the extent that it does not identify or cannot be used to identify individual users.

Who else has access to information within the Department?

GCIO captures this information on its own computers. Access to the raw data is restricted to a limited number of officers in GCIO for the purpose of analysis and to report on the success of NSW Government in meeting GCIO's communication and access objectives. The officers who can access this data are the members of the Electronic Services Unit of the Government Chief Information Office. If you would like to access information held about you by GCIO please contact Trevor Waters, Manager NSW Government, Level 21, McKell Building, 2-24 Rawson Place, Sydney, phone 9372 8274 and email trevor.waters@commerce.nsw.gov.au

Will this policy be updated over time?

Due to the developing nature of privacy principles for online communication, this policy may be modified or expanded in light of new developments or issues that may arise from time to time. The amended policy will be posted to this site and will operate from the time it is posted.

Cookies

'Cookies' are small pieces of text data that a web server can store on, and later retrieve from, a user's computer. They do not personally identify you, but do identify your browser. Cookies can be either 'persistent' or 'session' based. Persistent cookies are stored on your computer, contain an expiration date, and may be used to track your browsing behaviour upon return to the issuing web site. Session cookies are short-lived, are used only during a browsing session, and expire when you shut down your browser.

This NSW Government website uses persistent cookies. They record your preferences in relation to your use of the site and provide us with other information about your enquiry that allows us to recognise your browser if you return to this website in the future. This allow GCIO to present information that may be most relevant to you based on your previous visits. They also help GCIO to understand what parts of the site users find the most useful and improve the effectiveness of the website.

The cookies on this site do not read the information on your hard drive. They do not make your computer perform any actions or make your computer send information to any other computer via the internet. GCIO makes no attempt to associate cookies with users' names or identities. Our server cannot find out your name or email address, or anything about your computer, by using cookies.

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