The Australian Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, has issued a Temporary Public Interest Determination (TPID) to allow the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to disclose a limited set of specific personal information about current and former student visa holders to all police jurisdictions and the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC). The information will be used in a de-identified form by the AIC to compile a report about the victimisation rate of international students.

"Significant privacy protections have been included in the TPID," Ms Curtis said.

"The Determination outlines a set of conditions in relation to disclosures that may be made under the Determination and clearly specifies the purposes for which information can be used. In addition, the Determination imposes a number of security obligations on the handling and storage of all personal information. In the main the information being disclosed will be de-identified except where it is necessary to release specific limited personal information. Further, all personal information used for compiling and conducting this research project must be destroyed once the project is complete."

The AIC’s research will give the Australian Government an accurate picture of crime statistics involving international students and help it to formulate an appropriate policy and law enforcement response.

The TPID can be found here.