The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal has confirmed that it is not a breach of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (‘PPIP Act‘) to disclose personal information to a local council to enable the council to carry out investigations…
The Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (PPIP Act) creates 12 Information Protection Principles that NSW public sector agencies must follow when handling personal information. One of these principles is the restriction on disclosing personal information that a public sector…
The Supreme Court of New South Wales recently held that three media companies were the ‘publishers’ of comments made by members of the public on their public Facebook pages for the purposes of a defamation claim. The case sets a…
The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) recently considered an application under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA Act) for review of a decision of the Information Commissioner. While the Information Commissioner’s decisions when reviewing GIPA Act decisions…
The Copyright Act: long, complex, outdated, and a potential trapdoor for local councils when dealing with documents accompanying a development application. The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal has recently handed down a decision which illustrates the difficulties for councils in…
The use of information technology systems for internal management functions, to provide services and information to their communities and to exercise regulatory functions is integral to the day to day operation of governmental organisations. External providers are commonly used to…
The power in s 60 of the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA Act) to refuse to deal with an access application is a power often under-utilised by public sector agencies. In this blog, we consider whether recent amendments to the…
The Government Information (Public Access) Regulation 2018 (GIPA Reg 2018) commenced on 1 September 2018. The GIPA Reg 2018 repealed and replaced the Government Information (Public Access) Regulation 2009 (GIPA Reg 2009). The main difference between GIPA Reg 2018 and its…
In the recent matter of Shoebridge v Office of Environment and Heritage [2018] NSWCATAP 144, the Appeal Panel of the NCAT considered whether a government agency was obliged to determine an application for a discount to a processing charge before…
The Civil and Administrative Tribunal of NSW (‘NCAT’) has recently considered if in setting up an electronic rule within its email system, the result of which was to automatically redirect all emails sent from a particular person’s known email addresses…
The Commonwealth Government’s recent reforms to the Privacy Act 1988 have taken effect, heralding new obligations for a number of organisations across the country. This article will consider what those obligations are, who is affected, and how organisations will be required…
In a recent decision of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT), an application for review of an agency’s decision to refuse access to documents requested under the Government Information (Public Acccess) Act 2009 (GIPA Act) which was lodged out of time…