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News

National Cybersecurity Awareness Week is an Australian Government initiative, held annually in partnership with industry, community and consumer groups and state and territory governments.

Privacy Awareness Week 1-7 May 2011

Privacy: It’s all about you

Privacy Awareness Week 2011 is all about you: what can you do to protect your personal information and the information of others you might handle as part of your job?
We are asked for our personal information so often that we tend to forget that we have privacy rights. We also have privacy responsibilities when handling the personal information of our customers or clients.

Your privacy is important because it’s all about you

Protect your own personal information by:

  • Checking your online privacy settings (don’t forget your social networking profile and your browser settings)
  • Thinking about how much personal information you want to reveal before you do
  • Asking businesses what will happen to your information when you give it to them

Remember: It’s easy to disclose more information about ourselves than we need to. Your information is yours and you are generally under no obligation to hand it over to anyone without knowing what they are going to do with it.

Your privacy responsibilities

If you are handling the personal information of clients or others, protect it by:

  • Knowing your responsibilities under the Privacy Act 1988
  • Regularly monitoring your information handling practices to ensure they are secure
  • Making sure your security systems are adequate and up to date
  • Installing firewalls, cookie removers and anti-virus scanners
  • Keeping hard copy files in properly secured cabinets
  • Restricting file access to staff on a ‘need to know’ basis
  • Reviewing your businesses’ privacy policy – is the language plain and simple? Can people understand it?

Social media survey and animation - The Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities are interested in hearing about your experience of privacy and social media. Take part in their survey and tell your story here: www.privacyawarenessweek.org. While you are there, check out and share the short humorous animation with your friends and family.