Question 5: Are organisations allowed to use the personal information I post on social networking sites?

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Question 5:  Are organisations allowed to use the personal information I post on social networking sites?

Answer: If the information on your MySpace or Facebook page is publicly available, then anyone can look at it, including people in organisations. This means that there is nothing to stop potential employers from looking at your MySpace or Facebook page and perhaps choosing to base their decisions on what they see there.

However, if an organisation collects and stores information from your page to use for something, and that organisation is covered by the Privacy Act, then it must comply with the National Privacy Principles.

The National Privacy Principles are a set of rules in the Privacy Act that set out how an organisation must handle your personal information and what it is allowed to use it for.

So if, for example, an Australian department store collects your personal details from your Facebook page so that they can send you information about their latest sale, according to the Privacy Act, they will usually need to tell you who they are, how to contact them and only use your information for what they say they will.

To find out more about your privacy rights and the National Privacy Principles, go to www.privacy.gov.au/privacy_rights/npr.html.

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