Our privacy policy

Our commitment to privacy

We are committed to protecting your privacy and managing your personal information in accordance with:

the Information Privacy Act 2009
the Queensland Privacy Principles
Victims’ Commissioner and Sexual Violence Review Board Act 2024.

This includes:

collecting personal information fairly, openly, and transparently
ensuring that individuals can access and correct their personal information.
taking reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure
using and disclosing personal information only as authorised by law.

About this policy

We manage personal information in line with the Information Privacy Act 2009 (IP Act). We also have obligations outlined in the Victims’ Commissioner and Sexual Violence Review Board Act 2024 (Qld). We collect and manage your personal information as described on this page, unless stated otherwise.

What does ‘personal information’ mean?

In this policy, personal Information means information or an opinion about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable from the information or opinion:

whether the information or opinion is true or not; and
whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not (for example, whether or not it is in a written form, image, video, audio).

Personal information also includes sensitive Information - sensitive information includes:

racial or ethnic origin
political opinions
religious beliefs
health
others (as defined in Schedule 5 of the Information Privacy Act 2009).

Collection of personal information

We may collect personal information in the following ways:

directly from you (e.g. in person, when you call our office, email us, or submit a form to us)
from a representative (someone who is acting with your consent)
from third parties (another government department or service)
from your interactions with us online including via our website, forms or our social media.

We collect personal and sensitive information to perform our functions and powers under the Victims’ Commissioner and Sexual Violence Review Board Act 2024. We will only do this to:

meet your needs such as:
- answer a question
- receive your feedback or opinions about an issue
- deal with a Charter of Victims’ Rights complaint
meet our needs such as:
- promote the rights of victims of crime and the services available to victims of crime
- conduct research into matters affecting victims
- provide advice to the Minister on issues affecting victims and the promotion of victims’ rights
- identify and review systemic issues affecting victims of crime
if authorised or required by law.

We will not use the personal information for any other purpose unless we are required or authorised under a law to use it for another purpose, or we have your consent.

Type of information that we collect

We will collect your contact information, your name (if you choose to give it to us), information about yours or another person’s experience, and your opinions on your experiences, or the experiences of others as victims of crime. It is your choice if you want to stay anonymous when you make an enquiry or provide feedback to our office.

If you are making a Charter of Victims’ Rights complaint, section 47 of the Victims’ Commissioner and Sexual Violence Review Board Act 2024 (VCSVRB Act) requires us to collect your name and contact details and enough information to indicate what your complaint is about.

We will obtain your consent to collect your personal information through our online form, in writing, via the phone or in person. If you provide your consent over the phone or in person, we will make a written record of it in our document management system. If you provide your consent through our online form or in writing, this will also be saved in our document management system.

If you call us over the phone, we use Recording and Transcription services to help us. You can let us know if you don’t want a phone call recorded at the start of the phone call. Recordings and transcripts and calls are stored on our document management system.

Collection of personal information from other persons

Your personal information may be collected from someone else. This might be someone who is helping you with your complaint, or it might be from an agency that has information about your enquiry, complaint or feedback.

We will obtain your consent before contacting another agency to obtain your personal information. We will obtain your consent through our online form, in writing, via the phone or in person. If you provide your consent over the phone or in person, we will make a record of it in our document management system. If you provide your consent through our online form or in writing, this will also be saved in our document management system.

Use and disclosure of personal information

We will only use or disclose your personal information as permitted under the IP Act, the Victims’ Commissioner and Sexual Violence Review Board Act 2024, or other applicable laws.

This may include:

responding to your enquiries, feedback or Charter of Victims’ Rights complaints
sharing information with authorised third parties, such as law enforcement agencies, where required by law
promoting the rights of victims of crime and the services available to victims of crime
conducting research into matters affecting victims
consulting in relation to matters relating to victims
providing advice to the Minister or government on issues affecting victims and the promotion of victims’ rights
identifying and review systemic issues affecting victims of crime.

We give your personal information to others to connect you with support services or refer your concerns to law enforcement or regulatory bodies in Queensland or Australia. If you are making a Charter of Victims’ Rights complaint, we may also disclose any concerns you raise about a person, government entity or non-government entity, including your personal information, to a government entity or non-government entity or that person under sections 49 and 51 of the Victims’ Commissioner and Sexual Violence Review Board Act 2024. We may refer your complaint, including your personal information, to a government entity or non-government entity under section 57 of the Victims’ Commissioner and Sexual Violence Review Board Act 2024.

We will not publish information about you that can identify you without your consent. We will obtain your consent to publish information about you that can identify you through our online form, in writing, via the phone or in person. If you provide your consent over the phone or in person, we will make a record of it in our document management system. If you provide your consent through our online form or in writing, this will also be saved in our document management system.

Withdrawing your consent

You can withdraw your consent at any time. If you withdraw your consent, whether over the phone, in person, in writing or through our online form, it will be recorded in our document management system.

What happens if we don’t receive your personal information

If we don’t receive your personal information, this might impact how we can engage with you. We might not be able to:

provide a response to your enquiry or feedback
deal with a Charter of Victims’ Rights complaint
make a referral to a support service or another entity on your behalf.

Accessing and amending your information

You have the right to access and amend your personal information held by us. If you would like to access or amend your information you can:

Email us at privacy@victimscommissioner.qld.gov.au
Call us on 1800 714 100

Cookies

We use cookies to collect anonymous statistical information, including:

your browser, computer platform and screen resolution

your traffic patterns through our site, such as:
- the date and time of your visit
- the pages and documents accessed
- the website you visited before ours
- your server address.

We do not identify users or any browser activity outside this website, except in the unlikely event of an investigation, where a law enforcement agency may have a warrant to inspect activity logs.

Transactional services available from this site may use cookies to track business processes. Please read the particular service's privacy and security statement before beginning a transaction.

Analytics

We use analytics (including display advertising features) on our website and other third party online platforms to gather anonymous information about visitors. When you visit our web pages, your browser automatically sends anonymous information to Google. Examples of the information include the web address of the page that you're visiting, your IP address and demographic information. Google may also use cookies. We use this data to analyse the pages that are visited, to improve your experience and make sure our website is useful. You can read more about how Google uses data. You can choose not to allow Google to collect your information by opting out of Google Analytics or specifically opt out of Google Analytics display advertiser features.

Where is your information held?

If you are giving us a contact email address to write back to you, personal information contained in your response may be transferred outside of Australia. To avoid this, you can tell us about your concerns:

write to us at GPO Box 1435 BRISBANE QLD 4000
call us 1800 714 100
give us an email address where the servers are located in Australia.

Parts of this site transmit information securely across the internet. However, this is not always feasible. We recognise that there may be risks transmitting information across the internet. We will notify you where personal information is not transmitted securely.

Other websites

Where this site contains links to Queensland Government agencies’ websites, the privacy or security terms set out there will apply to the material on the websites.
Where this site contains links to non-Queensland Government websites, the Queensland Government is not responsible for the privacy or security practices or the content of any such websites.

Data security and retention

We take the security of your personal information seriously. Measures to protect your information include:

Providing privacy and security training to all our staff.
Requiring confidentiality agreements with our employees and service providers.
Storing information securely in accordance with the Public Records Act 2023 and relevant retention and disposal schedules.
Implementing the Queensland Government’s Information and Cyber Security Policy (IS18).

Data breaches

In the event of a data breach involving your personal information, we will notify you if the breach is likely to cause serious harm. If we cannot contact you directly, we will publish an online statement or take other reasonable steps to inform you. Our officers are required to report all data breaches in accordance with our Mandatory Data Breach Notification Policy and Procedure.

Making a privacy complaint

If you believe your privacy has been interfered with, you can make a complaint with us. Complaints are managed in accordance with our Privacy Complaints Procedure. To make a complaint or ask questions about how we manage your personal information, you can contact our Privacy Officer:

Email: privacy@victimscommissioner.qld.gov.au
Phone: 1800 714 100.

Related legislation and policies

This Privacy Policy aligns with the following:

Information Privacy Act 2009
Right to Information Act 2009
Public Records Act 2023
Public Sector Ethics Act 1994
Victims’ Commissioner and Sexual Violence Review Board Act 2024

Review and updates