Privacy Statement

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy is subject to the Privacy Act 1988 (‘the Act’) which requires that it complies with the Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) set out in the Act.  The IPPs set out how Australian Government agencies should collect, use, store and disclose personal information and how individuals can access records containing their personal information.  General information about the Act and the IPPs can be found on the website of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

If you are submitting personal details or other personal information over the internet which you wish to remain private, please note that, while all attempts are made to secure information transmitted to the National Broadband Network Website (‘the NBN Website’), there is a possibility that information you submit could be observed by a third party while in transit.

Information logged

When you visit the NBN Website, our server logs the following information which is provided by your browser for statistical purposes only:

• the type of browser and operating system you are using
• your top level domain name (for example .com, .gov, .au, .uk etc.)
• the address of the referring site (for example, the previous site that you visited), and
• your server’s IP address (a number which is unique to the machine through which you are connected to the internet usually one of your service provider’s machines).

In addition, our server logs the following information:

• the date and time of your visit, and
• the address of the pages accessed and the documents downloaded.

All of this information is only used for the purposes of statistical analysis, system administration, monitoring of NBN Website security, customisation of the NBN Website to user needs, evaluation, research, and development.  No attempt will be made to identify users or their browsing activities, except in the unlikely event of an investigation, such as, where a law enforcement agency may exercise a warrant or subpoena.  Information of this nature will only be disclosed to third parties if required or authorised by law.

All data described in this Notice are stored securely, and archived for a period of at least 12 months and possibly up to seven years.

Electronic mail addresses

We will only record your email address if you send us a message.  It will only be used for the purpose for which you provide it, and will not be added to a mailing list unless you request this to be done.  We will not disclose your email address without your consent, unless required by law.

Cookies

A cookie is an electronic token that is passed to your browser and your browser passes it back to the server whenever a page is sent to you.

Our server generates one cookie which is used to keep track of the pages you have accessed while using our server.  The cookie allows you to page back and forward through the website and return to pages you have already visited.  The cookie exists only for the time you are accessing our server.

Please note that some browsers can be configured to allow cookies to be accessed by servers other than the originating server.  Most browsers can also be configured to notify the user when a cookie is received, allowing you to either accept or reject it.  You do not need to have configured your browser to enable the accepting or sending of cookies in order to use the NBN Website.

Cookies are not used for any other purposes at the NBN Website.  We do not use cookies to collect personal information.

Searches

Search terms that you enter when using our search engine/database are collected, but are not associated with any other information that we collect.  We use these search terms to ascertain what people are looking for at our website, and to improve the services that we provide.

Links to other sites

The NBN Website contains links to, and/or embeds content linked from other sites. However, DBCDE is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of material from other sites. You should consult the linked site(s) for further information about their respective privacy practices and/or the terms of use.

Online forms

By submitting any personal information through the NBN website online forms you are consenting, for the purposes of the Act, to your personal information being disclosed to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and potentially other appropriate third parties, other Commonwealth Government Agencies (including statutory agencies) for the purposes of responding to your request and also for program administration, regulation and evaluation.

Site feedback

To improve the service offered by this website, we seek feedback from our users. If you have any comments on the technical operations or functionality of the NBN Website web pages, please use the NBN Website contact forms. Answering the questions in these forms is voluntary and does not in any way affect your access to the NBN Website. The DBCDE will not disclose this feedback to any third party, other than as required by law.