Government Guidelines
Guidelines to Information Privacy PrinciplesThe Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) recognises the importance that individuals place on the manner in which federal and ACT government agencies treat their personal information and imposes stringent standards to which agencies must comply. Within the Act, 11 Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) govern the collection, storage, use and disclosure of personal information by federal government and ACT agencies, as well as providing individuals with certain rights to access their personal information and correct errors. These guidelines discuss how agencies can meet their IPP obligations when handling personal information. They provide a detailed discussion and analysis of each IPP, with explanation given as to the meanings of the various terms and expressions used. Federal government agencies should find these a valuable resource in understanding their obligations under the IPPs and implementing privacy compliant practices.
Privacy and Public Key Infrastructure: Guidelines for Agencies using PKI to communicate or transact with individualsA key issue for the Australian community in the information age is how they can be confident of their privacy while taking advantage of the developments offered in information and communications technology. This is reflected, for example, in recent research into attitudes to privacy conducted by my Office that indicated more than half of all Internet users had more concerns about the security of personal information when using the Internet. Public key technology (PKT) and its surrounding infrastructure - public key infrastructure (PKI) - is a powerful technology which offers benefits to enhance privacy of individuals. It can, for example, provide confidentiality of on-line communications, authentication of parties in on-line transactions, as well as non-repudiation of transactions and message integrity. However, there are privacy risks associated with PKI and these need to be carefully managed.
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