We are all responsible for ensuring we protect people’s information – this includes people’s names, contact details, photos, or involvement in an incident as a victim or a responder. Meeting legal obligations and expectations of our Privacy Policy means we are treating the personal information we hold lawfully, respectively and with care. Not doing so can cause harm or distress, or impact Fire and Emergency’s reputation.

The Privacy Act 2020 sets out 13 Information Privacy Principles (IPP) that we must follow to make sure we respect other people’s privacy. Check out our Privacy Policy for more information. 

What to do if there’s been a privacy breach or near miss

A privacy incident includes a:

  • privacy breach, which occurs when there is unauthorised access, loss (including theft), or unauthorised disclosure of personal information; or a 
  • near miss, which is when a privacy breach could have occurred, but the incident was prevented before the information was disclosed. 

If you think there has been a privacy incident (either a breach, or near miss) you should report it to the Privacy Officer as soon as possible, so that the Privacy Officer (or the Legal Team on their behalf) can assist you through the process. You can also report it to your Manager in the first instance, who will then notify the Privacy Officer. 

The Privacy Officer or the Legal Team will follow the privacy incident process outlined in Managing privacy incidents guideline to take steps to:

  • contain the breach and perform an initial assessment (contain) 
  • initiate an investigation, and evaluate the risks (evaluate) 
  • remedy and respond (notify) 
  • consider the cause and how to prevent it happening again (prevent). 

For more information: 
The following documents contain Fire and Emergency’s privacy policy and privacy related guidelines you should be aware of:  

In addition to the Privacy Policy and guidelines, we should also be familiar with Fire and Emergency’s Privacy Officer and how to contact them.

If you’re not sure if something is personal information, or you have any privacy related questions, please contact the Legal team

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