What happens to my personal information?
We will ask you to provide personal information to the Scheme if you are:
- Appling for redress under the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme.
- Appointing a redress nominee.
- The appointed redress nominee.
- Applying on behalf of someone who has passed away.
Your personal information is protected by law, including the Privacy Act 1988.
Why do we collect your information?
The National Indigenous Australians Agency is responsible for administering the Scheme, as well as the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information. We will collect your personal information to enable us to:
- Check your identity to make sure we are providing redress to the right person.
- Check your redress nominee’s identity to make sure we contact with the right person.
- Change or remove an assistance nominee if you tell us to do so.
- Determine whether you are eligible for redress.
- Communicate with other persons and bodies for the purposes of processing your application, including:
- Searching for records about you, to help us to determine if you are eligible for redress.
- Checking whether you have received any relevant prior payments.
- Provide you with redress (eg, by making a redress payment and/or delivering a Personal Acknowledgement)
- Administer, report on, evaluate and analyse the Scheme (though we will not include information that identifies you in any public reports or other materials of this kind).
When we might disclose your personal information to, or collect it from, third parties
We may need to disclose your personal information to third parties.
We may also need to collect your personal information and personal information about your redress nominee from third parties for those same purposes.
We will only do this with your consent or your redress nominee’s, or where the law otherwise allows or requires us to. These third parties may include:
- Government agencies and their staff (eg, Services Australia, Department of Home Affairs, or State and Territory agencies).
- Non-government organisations that may hold your personal information (such as record repositories, or institutions that may have been involved in your removal).
- Organisations involved in the delivery of the Scheme (such as service providers contracted by the Commonwealth to verify your identity, or provide support to you).
- Ministers’ offices and public servants (who may be involved in delivering a Personal Acknowledgement to you, if requested).
- Your redress nominees (if any).
For example, we may need to contact a record-holder, such as a State archive, to locate documents that will help us to determine whether you are eligible for redress. This might involve:
- Disclosing your personal information to the archive (eg, your name and date of birth), so that they can find relevant records.
- Collecting your personal information from the archive, when they give us records about your removal.
The Scheme will not disclose your personal information to anyone overseas.
What happens if we do not collect this information?
Neither you nor your redress nominee have to provide your personal information. If you do not, however, we may not be able to be able to process your application, provide you with redress, or appoint a nominee.
More information about privacy
For more information about how your personal information will be handled, visit niaa.gov.au/privacy. This sets out our Privacy Policy, which contains information about:
How you can access personal information that we hold about you, and ask us to correct any errors in that information.
How you can complain about a breach of your privacy, and how we will deal with complaints.
Access to information
If you or your redress nominee would like to discuss accessing a copy of any information we hold about you, you can contact us by calling 1800 566 111 or emailing help@territoriesredress.gov.au.
The information you provide will be protected from unauthorised disclosure under the Privacy Act 1988.
For more information visit niaa.gov.au/privacy.