Site Changes

On 1 November 2010 the Office of the Privacy Commissioner was integrated into the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and a new website established at www.oaic.gov.au.

Note 1: Major changes to the Privacy Act 1988 will come into effect in March 2014. Agencies, businesses and not for profits need to start preparing for these changes. For more information go to our privacy law reform page at www.oaic.gov.au
Note 2: From 12 March 2013 content is no longer being added to, or amended, on this site, consequently some information may be out of date. For new privacy content visit the www.oaic.gov.au website.

Answer 8 (yes)

Question 8

Is your complaint about:

a private health service provider; or
a private organisation with an annual turnover greater than $3 million; or
a credit provider or credit reporting agency?

Your answer: Yes

In most cases, the Commissioner must not investigate your complaint unless you have already complained to the respondent. In limited circumstances, the Commissioner may decide to investigate even though you have not complained to the respondent, for example where:

you have been unable to contact the respondent after repeated attempts; or
the person who would investigate your complaint is the same person you are complaining about.

You should allow the respondent a month in which to respond to your complaint. If you receive no reply and have been unable to chase up a response, you can lodge your complaint with the Commissioner. If you receive an unsatisfactory response that does not resolve your privacy concerns, you can also lodge your complaint with the Commissioner, even if a month have not passed (Section of the Privacy Act to read: 40(1A)).

In most cases, the Commissioner will not investigate your complaint if it has been adequately resolved by the respondent or where it is reasonable for the respondent to continue trying to resolve your complaint.

The following case notes (2004_5, 2004_9,2004_10) will tell you more about how the Commissioner makes decisions in this kind of situation (Sections of the Privacy Act to read: 41(2)(a) and 41(2)(b)).

EXCEPTIONS

The Part IIIA credit provisions of the Privacy Act regulate consumer credit only; they do not regulate commercial credit in relation to credit providers and credit reporting agencies.
The Privacy Act does not apply to letters or other articles in the course of transmission by post.
The Commissioner cannot investigate if the respondent is a member of an Approved Code and the Commissioner is not the Code Adjudicator. In this case please contact the Code Adjudicator directly.
Some of the National Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act do not apply to personal information collected before the National Privacy Principles came into operation due to sections 16C and 16D of the Privacy Act.

KEY POINTS

Before lodging your complaint with the Commissioner you should first write to the respondent setting out your complaint so that it has an opportunity to resolve your complaint.
You should allow the respondent a month to respond to your complaint.
If you receive no response from the respondent or it has not resolved your privacy complaint you can then lodge your complaint with the Commissioner.

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