Syllabus Detail
- Legal requirement and implication of information kept by various organisations about individuals 11 ATAR, 12 GEN
Overview
- Privacy for individuals is a controversial topic and has caused more problems now as a result of social media.
- Organisations are legally responsible for what they do with information about individuals.
- Australian Privacy Principle 1 directs open and transparent management of personal information
What must organisations do?
- They must comply with the Australian Privacy Principles.
- This means they must...
- have an up-to-date policy for how they deal with customer information
- show how it collects and holds this information
- show how it discloses this information to others
- show this policy on their company website
- if requested they must give their policy to individuals or government departments.
- explain to individuals why they are collecting the information
- individuals must consent to providing information to companies
How do we know about this?
- When we sign up to join an online community we often agree to terms of use.
- Many people agree to these, without actually reading the fine print.
What could happen?
- The organisation may use your information in a way you are not happy with.
- For example social media websites sometimes have the rights to use the photos individuals post within their websites.
- If an organisation distributes your information, ie your email address to a marketing distribution website, you could receive hundreds of spam emails.
- Identify theft could occur if your information gets into the wrong hands.
For You to Do
- List some online organisations that have asked you to acknowledge a "Terms of use" when you signed up.
- What could go wrong for individuals if an organisation does not look after your information correctly?
Further Research
Go to this website and read the first 4 paragraphs. Write a very brief summary of how privacy may be changing by 2018.
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