other aspects for Commonwealth agencies

This page is under construction.

     Medical Research

The Privacy Act also provides that the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) may issue guidelines for the protection of privacy in the conduct of medical research. 

The first guidelines (PDF) were released in 1995 following the NHMRC information paper Aspects of Privacy in Medical Research. They allow disclosure by Commonwealth agencies, as long as the medical research is conducted in accordance with the guidelines, and prescribe procedures for researchers and institutional ethics committees. 

     Telecommunications

The Telecommunications Act 1997 includes provisions dealing with the privacy of personal information held by carriers, carriage service providers and others. 

Those provisions embrace the development of voluntary industry codes and standards relating to privacy; the Privacy Commissioner must be consulted on any privacy codes and in principle breaches would be enforced by the Australian Communications Authority (ACA).

     Archival Data

The Commonwealth Spent Convictions Scheme came into force in 1990 as part of amendments to the Crimes Act 1914 (Crimes), concerned with offences against the national government. 

It allows individuals to disregard some criminal convictions after 5 to 10 years, with protection against unauthorised use and disclosure of that information. It covers convictions for minor federal, state and foreign offences, with the protections available varying according to which type of offence (federal, state or foreign) gave rise to the conviction. The scheme also covers pardons and quashed conviction

     Other Legislation

Other Commonwealth legislation includes the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 (ASIO), the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI) and associated Archives Act 1983 (AA), and the Income Tax Assessment Act (Tax).


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