Office of the Australian Information Commissioner | Departments/Agencies

A shot across the bow: Home Affairs under investigation for persistent breaches of FOI Act

By Stephen Easton

Federal

Information commissioner Angelene Falk has fired a warning shot at the Australian Public Service over transparency with the announcement that she is investigating the Department…

The Department of the Environment and Energy has been breaching the FOI Act for 10 months now

By Stephen Easton

Communications & Technology

The Department of the Environment and Energy has been in breach of the Freedom of Information Act for almost 10 months. That's how long it's…

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Public servants tell harrowing tales of harassment after a mention in an FOI release. Their leaders want to shield them from the trolls, but anonymity comes with a price

By Stephen Easton

Features

The Australian government's guidelines for dealing with Freedom of Information requests help balance many of the competing interests that come with having a democratic, accountable…

Australian public servants are uniting to demand a change to FOI guidelines

By Stephen Easton

Federal

Federal public service leaders want the official FOI guidelines changed to support their standard practice of shielding the names and contact details of staff below…

Information Commissioner puts focus on prevention as cyber criminals target human vulnerability

By Shannon Jenkins

Communications & Technology

The Australian Information Commissioner has called for better staff training to prevent data breaches, following a new report.

Keeping names of public servants out of FOI: privacy protection ... or just a bit precious?

By Stephen Easton

Communications & Technology

It is standard practice to block out the names of all but the most senior public servants from documents released under the Freedom of Information…

Almost 1000 data breaches in a year, and citizens don't know who to trust with privacy

By Stephen Easton

Communications & Technology

There were 964 data breaches reported to the federal regulator in the first year of mandatory reporting rules and “malicious or criminal attacks” were behind…

It's Privacy Awareness Week for public servants, campaigning pollies get a free pass

By Stephen Easton

Communications & Technology

Privacy commissioners of four states and the Commonwealth are celebrating their week on the awareness-raising calendar, at the pointy end of an election campaign that…

John McMillan bats away claims of apprehended bias against John Lloyd

By Stephen Easton

Federal

The experienced jurist responds to the former APS commissioner's claims that he exceeded his brief and that he should have been excluded due to apprehended bias…

'Unfair and biased': John Lloyd gets the last word

By Stephen Easton

Federal

The former Australian public service commissioner has accused the merit protection commissioner's office of smearing his reputation.

Right to Know Day: information commissioner addresses federal FOI officers

By Angelene Falk

Federal

The Australian Information Commissioner gave a keynote address to federal FOI officers at a meeting of the Information Contact Officers Network (ICON) this week.

Patients and the data breach notification maze

By Megan Prictor

Features

A new report confirms that Australia’s healthcare sector is susceptible to data breaches, yet the legal requirements around breach notification are inconsistent and about to…

Data breaches on the rise

By The Mandarin

News

The number of data breach notifications has increased steadily with each month since Australia's new mandatory disclosure laws came into effect earlier this year, according…

IBAC marks Privacy Awareness Week by charging ex-cop with misuse of information

By Stephen Easton

Editors' Picks

Just after one corruption watchdog warned public servants not to peek at government records without good reason in its contribution to Privacy Awareness Week, another…

Human error (not hackers) behind most data breaches: NDB's first report

By The Mandarin

Communications & Technology

In just six weeks there were 63 data breach notifications to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner since the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme came…