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Privacy complaints
Under the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) you can make a complaint about the handling of your personal information by Australian, ACT and Norfolk Island government agencies and private sector organisations covered by the Privacy Act. The handling of your personal information by State and Northern Territory government agencies is not covered by the Privacy Act. If you are unsure about whether the OAIC can investigate your complaint, please refer to our Complaint Checker for guidance.
Our Service charter sets out the standard of service you can expect from us.
How to make a privacy complaint
For detailed information about making a privacy complaint, see the complaints section of the former Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s website.
You can make a privacy complaint by using our new online Privacy Complaint form (this requires Adobe Reader 9.3 or later). For technical reasons these forms are hosted for us by the Australian Government on the Australian Business Account portal. When you complete and submit a form your information is not accessible to anyone other than ourselves. Simply select the
If you do not have access to Adobe you can access a privacy complaint form in different formats, either HTML or Word or you can just write to us.
If you are not satisified with our handling of your matter, please read our Internal complaint handling and reconsideration of decisions policy, available on our Other operational information page.
Note that before 1 November 2010, the OAIC's privacy functions were carried out by the former Office of the Privacy Commissioner. From 1 November 2010, the Privacy Act functions have been carried out by the OAIC.