Privacy Policy

Data.gov.au is an online service managed by the Australian Commonwealth Government and administrated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We respect and protect the privacy of our users.

This privacy statement tells you what personal information we collect, how we collect and use personal information and how we protect personal information.

More information on how ABS handles personal information is available here: ABS Privacy Policy

Personal information

The term "Personal Information" in this privacy statement relates to any information from which your identity is apparent or can be reasonably ascertained.

We do not collect personal information about you when you visit Data.gov.au and you are not required to disclose personal information to access or interact with the data on Data.gov.au.

In order to provide certain services of Data.gov.au, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as the administrator of the website, will require personal contact details. If you contact us, we will collect the email address you nominate, as well as the contact name and contact number you provide. This is the only identifying information we require, and we request that you please do not give us other personal or sensitive information.

We do not share personal information with other government agencies, unless unlawful activity or serious threats to health and safety are identified. If you ask us about an issue that needs to be dealt with by another agency, we will provide you with the necessary details to make contact yourself.

Accessing or correcting personal information

You may request to access or correct your personal contact details provided to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, we will need evidence of your identity before we can grant you access to information about you or change it.

You can contact us by email at support@data.gov.au for further assistance.

How we protect your personal information

This online service is hosted in Australia within a secure, government accredited facility.

To help protect the privacy of data and personal information we collect and hold, we maintain physical, technical and administrative safeguards. We update and test our security technology on an ongoing basis.

We train our employees about the importance of confidentiality and maintaining the privacy and security of your information. Access to your Personal Information is restricted to employees who need it to provide services to you.

Providing feedback and contacting website support

Data.gov.au has an in-built feedback form to allow users to provide input in relation to the site. Users can also contact the team via the support email at support@data.gov.au. These support mechanisms can be found on the homepage of the website.

Whether you use the feedback form or send an email to us, we require your personal contact information to enable follow-up for more details or for the purpose of providing a reply to your email. The personal contact information you provide will only be used for this purpose.

Website analytics

We analyse non-identifiable website traffic data to improve our services. We only use session-based cookies for anonymous website usage data to help us improve the structure and functionality of Data.gov.au and for agency users who log in to the site to upload and manage their datasets.

Cookies are an industry standard and most major websites use them. A cookie is a small text file that our site may place on your computer as a tool to remember your preferences.

You can change your web browser settings to reject cookies or to prompt you each time a website wishes to add a cookie to your browser, however, please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website.

When visiting this site, a record of your visit is logged. The following information is supplied by your browser and collected by us:

The types of web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari) and operating System (e.g. Windows 10, Mac OS X etc.) you are using
Network location and IP address
The date and time of your visit to our website
Pages visited and the time spent on each page
Documents downloaded and search terms used
Referring site details (such as the URL that you came through to arrive at our website)
Device information, hardware model, operating system information, app version, app usage, debugging information, browser information
Geo-location information (if enabled by user)

Data.gov.au may contain links to other websites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of these sites. If you are redirected to other websites, we advise you to make yourself aware of their privacy policy.

Google Analytics and Visual Web Optimiser are the analytics tools used by Data.gov.au. These services transmit website traffic data to Google and IBM SoftLayer servers, that may be located outside of Australia.

These services do not identify individual users or associate your IP address with any other data held by Google or Wingify (the parent company of Visual Web Optimiser). We use reports provided by these analytics tools to help us understand website traffic and usage.

By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about your visit to the website by analytics tool providers in the manner described in Google's Privacy Policy, Visual Web Optimiser's Privacy Policy and for the purposes set out above.

You can opt out of Google Analytics if you disable or refuse the cookie, disable JavaScript, or use the opt-out service provided by Google.

You can opt out of Visual Web Optimiser if you disable or refuse the cookie, disable JavaScript, or use the opt-out service provided by Wingify.

We do not share this information with other government agencies, unless unlawful activity or serious threats to health and safety are identified.

Our obligations

This online service is bound by the provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), including the Australian Privacy Principles.

We also follow the Guidelines for Federal and ACT government websites issued by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Your obligations

Please refer to the Terms of Use for information on registration for user accounts and your obligations for using this site.