Category:Privacy of the Invidual

Privacy of the Individual Privacy is about protecting the information that belongs to an individual. Private information refers to anything that identifies you as the individual. Privacy is a basic need for our society, we need to know who has our personal information. Privacy is a feeling of safety and knowing that our personal information is safe from intrusion. For this to happen we need to be confident that our information will not be collected, kept disclosed and will not be used without the owners consent. Personal information is required to be collected by many organisations to carry out various functions these days. This creates suspicion as to if this information will be used for only the needs that they specify it for and how do we know what these tasks are? Laws are now in place that make sure that organisations that need your personal information tell you what it is used for and explain that they cant give this information to anyone else or use it for any other reasons. In Australia privacy is legally protected by the 'Privacy Act 1988'. It contains 10 national privacies principles that set standards that organisations are required to meet. These 10 principles are: 1) collection- describes what an organisation should do when collecting your personal information. 2) use and disclosure- outlines how organisations can use and disclose your personal information. 3)data quality 4) data security- set the standards that organisations must meet for the accuracy, currency, completeness and security of your personal information. 5) openness- requires organisations to be open about how they handle your personal information. 6) access and correction- gives you a general right of access to your own personal information and the right to have that information corrected if it is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. 7) identifiers- says that generally commonwealth government identifiers such as the Medicare number or the veterans affair number can only be used for the purpose for which they were issued 8) anonymity- where possible, requires organisations to provide the opportunity for you to interact with them without identifying themselves. 9) transborder data flows- outlines privacy protections that allow to the transfer off your personal information out of Australia. 10) sensitive information- requires your consent when an organisation collects sensitive information about you such as health information or information about your racial or ethnic background or criminal record. Consequences of the 'privacy act 1988' means that organisations have to: - explain why the personal information is being collected and how it will be used - provide the individuals with access to the information - correction of inaccurate information - reveal details of the organisations that may be provided with information from the system - tell the individuals the reason for holding and having this information - describe the information held and how it will be managed