The NSW Treasury website is maintained by NSW Treasury (Treasury). This privacy policy applies to all the publicly accessible pages on the Treasury site located at treasury.nsw.gov.au.

Treasury will only collect personal information for a lawful purpose which directly relates to our primary function as a NSW Government agency and for obtaining feedback about our services. Treasury will not collect any more information than is necessary for it to fulfill these functions.

Treasury will not disclose your personal information to anyone without your consent, unless legally required to do so.

Treasury does not have any responsibility for the privacy policies or practices of third party sites linked to the NSW Treasury website.

NSW Treasury's privacy practices are regulated chiefly by the Privacy and Personal Information Act 1998 (NSW) (PPIP Act) and Treasury's Privacy Management Plan and Guidelines TIPP 5.19 (PMP). The PMP outlines Treasury’s Data Breach Policy and Internal Privacy Breach Response Plan. 

Further details of Treasury’s response to data breaches and compliance with the Mandatory Notification of Data Breach (MNDB) Scheme can be found on Treasury's Privacy Management Plan page. This includes a register of public notifications and links to public notifications.

If you have any questions about the NSW Treasury site or the application of this privacy policy, or a request for access to information held, please contact the NSW Treasury Communications team at [email protected].

What is personal information?

Your personal information relates to you personally and includes any information or opinion made about you. Personal information includes your name, address, phone number, email address or any information from which your identity can be reasonably ascertained.

What is not personal information?

The PPIP Act excludes certain information from the definition of personal information. The most significant exemptions are:

  • information contained in publicly available publications
  • information about a person’s suitability for public sector employment
  • information about people who have been dead for more than 30 years
  • information about an individual that is contained in a public interest disclosure within the meaning of the Public Interest Disclosures Act 2022, or that has been collected in the course of an investigation arising out of a public interest disclosure
  • a number of exemptions relating to law enforcement investigations
  • matters contained in Cabinet documents.

When can personal information be disclosed?

The PPIP Act allows disclosure of personal information in certain circumstances, such as:

  • law enforcement and related matters, including for the protection of public revenue or in relation to the proceeds of crime
  • to investigative agencies
  • where lawfully authorised or required
  • when it would benefit the individual concerned
  • to inform the Premier or a Minister of certain matters.

What information do we collect?

When you look at the pages on the NSW Treasury site, our computers automatically record the following information in order for the NSW Treasury site to effectively run in users’ browsers:

  • the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the machine which has accessed it
  • your top-level domain name (for example .com, .gov, .au, .uk etc.)
  • the address of your server
  • the date and time of your visit to the site
  • the pages accessed, documents downloaded and keywords searched on the website
  • the previous website visited
  • the type of browser and operating system you have used
  • the number of screen colours displayed on the device
  • the time spent on each page.

How we collect this information

Cookies

'Cookies' are small pieces of text data that a web server can store on, and later retrieve from, a computer. They do not personally identify you, but do identify your browser. Cookies can be either 'persistent' or 'session' based. Persistent cookies are stored on your computer, contain an expiration date, and may be used to track your browsing behaviour upon return to the issuing website. Session cookies are short-lived, are used only during a browsing session, and expire when you shut down your browser.

The NSW Treasury site uses first and second party persistent cookies (i.e. issued and retrieved by the NSW Treasury systems or Google) to collect information about visitor behaviour and general website statistics.

We may also record your preferences in relation to your use of the NSW Treasury site and other information about your enquiry that allows us to provide a faster and richer interaction when you return to the site in the future.

The cookies on the NSW Treasury site do not read the information on your hard drive. NSW Treasury makes no attempt to associate cookies with users' names or identities. Our server cannot find out your name or email address from the cookies used on the site.

Google Analytics

The NSW Treasury site uses Google Analytics, a reporting service provided by Google, Inc. (‘Google’) and its subsidiaries. Google Analytics uses ‘cookies’ to help us analyse how users navigate the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the site (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States.

Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the site, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity.

Google may also transfer this information to third parties, where required to do so by law or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. Please note, however, if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of the NSW Treasury site.

By using the site, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above. For more details visit Google Analytics Terms of Service.

How do we use the information that has been collected?

The information collected during each visit is aggregated with similar logged information and published in reports in order for NSW Treasury to identify patterns of usage of the NSW Treasury site. This will assist us in improving the website and the services offered on it.

NSW Treasury will not disclose or publish information that identifies individual machines, or potentially identifies sub-groupings of addresses, without consent or otherwise in accordance with the New South Wales Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998, and the Information Protection Principles.

Other uses

NSW Treasury may collect, use and disclose more extensive information than stated above in investigating and taking appropriate action in the following (and similar) circumstances:

  • unauthorised attempts to access files which are not published on the NSW Treasury site;
  • unauthorised tampering or interference with files published on the NSW Treasury site;
  • unauthorised attempts to index the contents of the NSW Treasury site by other websites;
  • attempts to intercept messages of other users of the NSW Treasury site;
  • communications that are defamatory, abusive, vilify individuals or groups or which give rise to a suspicion that an offence is being committed; and
  • attempts to otherwise compromise the security of the web server, breach the laws of the State of New South Wales or Commonwealth of Australia, or interfere with the enjoyment of the NSW Treasury site by other users.

NSW Treasury reserves the right to make disclosures to relevant authorities where the use of the NSW Treasury site raises a suspicion that an offence is being, or has been, committed. In the event of an investigation, NSW Treasury will provide access to data to any law enforcement agency that may execute a warrant to inspect our logs.

Secure storage

NSW Treasury will retain the information you have provided for a period that is appropriate for the purpose for which it was provided. The information will be archived and disposed of in accordance with NSW Treasury’s policies, legislative requirements and guidelines based on the NSW State Records Act 1998.

Should you have any queries about the storage of information that has been collected, please contact [email protected]

What we do with feedback and form information

NSW Treasury provides feedback forms on the NSW Treasury site to allow users to comment on the NSW Treasury site.

Personal details may be requested to enable follow up for more details, for the purpose of providing a reply to your feedback, if requested. Providing personal information to us is voluntary. However, if you do not provide contact details we will not have any way of communicating with you. The information you provide will only be used for the purpose for which it was collected.

Who else has access to information within NSW Treasury?

NSW Treasury captures this information on its own computers. Access to the raw data is restricted to a limited number of officers for the purpose of analysis and to report on the success of the NSW Treasury site in meeting communication and access objectives. The officers who can access this data are the members of the Communications or IT teams of NSW Treasury.

If you would like to access information held about you by NSW Treasury in relation to the NSW Treasury site please email [email protected].

Can I access my personal information or ask further questions?

You can apply to access or correct your personal information that NSW Treasury has collected. NSW Treasury will give you reasons if we deny your application.

If you would like to access information held about you or you have any other questions about this Privacy Statement, please email [email protected].

Last updated: 19/12/2023