[LINK] Bugbear runs rampant in Australian parliament

[Simon Davis]

Howard Lowndes wrote:
 
> 
> On Fri, 25 Oct 2002, Craig Sanders wrote:
> 
> > some of this stuff should, perhaps, be available to the 
> public anyway :-)
[snip]
> 
> Bullshit do they have an obligation to keep personal 
> information private.
[snip]
> I tried to take
> this up with the OFPC but he could do nothing as the Civil Aviation Act
> says that CASA shall make the register publically available is such manner
> as they determine.

As Howard points out not all personal information collected by the
Commonwealth is kept private--but that is only because some laws require
that information to be made public. The electrol roll is perhaps the best
example of this.

Unless a statute requires otherwise, the FoI Act (for material less than 30
years of age) and the Archives Act (for material more than 30 years of age)
generally control access to Commonwealth records. Both Acts have exemptions
from release for personal information although (going from memory--this
isn't really my area of expertise) the Archives Act provides for less
exemption than the FoI Act.

Basically this means that some personal information that might be exempted
from release under the FoI Act when it is less than 30 years of age may well
become available for access when the Archives Act kicks in at 30 years.

Simon

*****************************************
Simon Davis
Assistant Director, Digital Preservation
National Archives of Australia

simond@naa.gov.au
phone: +61-2-6212-3461
fax:   +61-2-6212-3469
*****************************************
----------
For Link list information see http://sunsite.anu.edu.au/link/