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ALRC 12
On 20 November 1979, the Treasurer announced the Government's response to certain recommendations during preparation for the 1981 census. The Treasurer indicated that the recommendation for precise questions to be set out in the regulations would not be implemented in time for the 1981 census.
Amendments were made to the existing legislation by the Census and Statistics Amendment Act (No 2) 1981 (Cth), which implemented some ALRC recommendations including clarifying the power of the Australian Bureau of Statistics to ensure compliance with the Census process and providing for the Minister's power to release information, in a manner that would not personally identify an individual. However, generally, all census forms continued to be destroyed after collation of statistics because of privacy concerns by some members of the public.
For the 2001 Census people were given a choice of having their names, addresses and census information retained confidentially by the National Archives of Australia and released for research purposes after 99 years. Details were retained only for those householders who explicitly 'opted in'. The success of this option will be assessed to determine how future Census forms will be handled.
ALRC 22
The Commonwealth enacted the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), which created the position of a Privacy Commissioner and implemented many of the recommendations relating to information privacy.
The functions of the Privacy Commissioner include that of receiving and investigating complaints under the Act. A Privacy Advisory Committee was also established to advise the Commissioner and to carry out a range of other functions including community education about privacy.
While ALRC 22 considered regulation of information in both the public and private sectors, the original Privacy Act dealt with only personal information held by Commonwealth departments and authorities and tax file number information held by both private and government individuals or organisations. It established 11 Information Privacy Principles to govern the use of and access to personal information by Commonwealth departments and authorities.
The Privacy Amendment Act 1990 (Cth) amended the Privacy Act to provide protection for individuals' personal credit information. It did so by limiting the purposes for and organisations to which a credit reporting agency can disclose this information and by providing guidelines in the form of a Code of Conduct as to how this information should be dealt with. It also provided individuals with a right to access this information and to apply to have errors in that information corrected.
The Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Act 1987 (Cth) adopted many of the Commission's recommendations on telephone tapping.
The Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 (Cth), which came into effect in December 2001, made further amendments to the Privacy Act 1988. The amendments set out the National Privacy Principles for the fair handling of personal information in the private sector and provide a basis for business and industry to develop practices to ensure that the privacy of individuals is protected and that the personal information they hold is accurate and secure.