Privacy Week - Gathering personal information at incidents

The nature of our work at Fire and Emergency means that we come into contact with people at some of their most vulnerable moments, whether that’s at a fire, a medical event or another emergency. We learn sensitive information about them, and we need to look after that information.

If you gather information about somebody at an emergency you attend, you need to keep it confidential. This is an obligation in our Standards of Conduct, and also under the Privacy Act.

If you’re taking photos for brigade social media purposes, be very careful that the photos don’t breach anyone’s privacy. If those photos show members of the public in an identifiable way, or other things that could identify someone such as a car licence plate, don’t share them on social media.

If you’re sharing photos of other members of your brigade, it’s best to check that you have consent from everybody in the photo before you share it.

Remember, under the Media policy you can only take photos or videos at incidents if the OIC Fire or Incident Controller has given you the approval to do so. Even if you have permission to take photographs or videos, you need further permission from a Region Manager or the National Communications Manager before they can be used externally or publicly.

For further information, see our Media Policy on the Portal.

You can download Privacy Week posters and other resources for your station via the Office of the Privacy Commissioner website(external link)