To address community concerns about unauthorised use of personal information, the Queensland Government has introduced a privacy scheme to be implemented in the public sector.
The scheme, approved by Cabinet on 10 September 2001, will ensure public sector (government) agencies respect personal information about Queenslanders.
It creates strict rules about how personal information is collected, stored, used and disclosed by the public sector. The aim is to protect both electronic and printed information about individuals from being lost, misused or inappropriately modified or disclosed.
Personal information is defined as any information that would allow an individual to be identified, for example, their name, age or physical characteristics.
The scheme, which is being implemented by administrative means rather than by legislation, is based on the same rules that apply to the federal public sector under the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988. Eleven Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) have been adopted from that federal legislation to form the basis of the Queensland scheme.
Queensland Government departments and agencies must comply with these 11 IPPs. They are:
- Principle 1: Manner and purpose of collection of personal information;
- Principle 2: Solicitation of personal information from individual concerned;
- Principle 3: Solicitation of personal information generally;
- Principle 4: Storage and security of personal information;
- Principle 5: Information relating to records kept by record-keeper;
- Principle 6: Access to records containing personal information;
- Principle 7: Alteration of records containing personal information;
- Principle 8: Record-keeper to check accuracy, etc., of personal information before use;
- Principle 9: Personal information to be used only for relevant purposes;
- Principle 10: Limits on use of personal information;
- Principle 11: Limits on disclosure of personal information.
In addition, it is mandatory that departments and agencies:
- nominate a privacy contact officer as the first point of contact for privacy issues within their own agencies;
- develop privacy plans to implement the Information Privacy Principles;
- publish privacy plans on their websites;
- implement the privacy plans according to a schedule developed in the privacy plan;
- review and update privacy plans annually;
- develop a privacy and security statement and publish it on their website;
- be responsible for accessing and correcting records; and
- be responsible for complaint resolution mechanism.
The Department of Justice and Attorney-General's Privacy Unit has produced a factsheet
which explains the framework.
Details of the scheme are also provided in Information Standard 42 which was issued by the Department of Innovation and Information Economy (under ss.22(2) and 56(1) of the Financial Management Standard 1997) (these links will take you to other websites).
If you have a question about Legal Aid Queensland's privacy scheme, email our 
Privacy Contact Officer or phone 1300 65 11 88.