The community provides personal information – such as name and contact details – in order to access services, ask for help, make payments and provide feedback.

Council manages personal information in accordance with the Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) of the Information Act 2002 (NT). The IPPs are a roadmap for fair, lawful and secure collection, storage, use and disclosure of personal information by council. The IPPs also include the ability for a person to seek access to and correction of (their own) personal information.

Our program of work:

Council’s ongoing program of privacy work is based on the following Mission and Vision:

Mission:

The City of Darwin (Council) collects and manages personal information in accordance with the law and in a way that responds to community expectations.

Vision:

• The community is aware of and understands Council’s approach to privacy
• Council’s collection and management of personal information is lawful and fair
• Council is a trusted custodian of personal information
• Council staff are trained in privacy and understand its importance to the city’s operations.

Guiding principles:

To help us achieve our Mission and Vision for privacy, council applies seven Guiding Principles. These principles underpin our ongoing program of privacy work.

1. Transparency – Darwin is an aware and informed community.
2. Value – There is demonstrable value for the community in providing their personal information to council.
3. Collection Limitation – Personal information is collected only when it is necessary for the performance of council functions.
4. Safety First – Where personal information must be collected, it is securely stored and
   de-identified wherever possible before use or disclosure.
5. Fair Decisions – Lawful decisions about the collection and handling of personal information are made by council and the decisions reflect community values and expectations.
6. Accountability – Privacy by Design is supported for all Initiatives involving personal information, privacy impact assessments are conducted and council’s privacy posture is regularly reviewed.
7. Agility – Council adapts and respond to changes in legislation, public policy, technology and the emerging body of privacy best-practice.

Privacy uplift

Council’s program of privacy work includes uplifting the profile of privacy by formalising a Privacy Management Framework (PMF) and Privacy Management Plan (PMP). The PMF outlines the strategic privacy imperatives for council, such as privacy culture and accountability. The PMP will guide council in its delivery of key policy, procedure and operations associated with privacy.

Privacy for Smart Darwin initiatives

Council’s program of privacy work also includes:

• Development of a Framework to support the commissioning of #SwitchingOnDarwin technologies (which are part of the broader Smart Darwin Strategy). The Framework includes essential privacy action items to ensure that council’s use of #SwitchingOnDarwin technologies meets the requirements of the Information Act 2002 (NT) and privacy best practice generally
• Completion of Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA)s for #SwitchingOnDarwin technologies that involve the collection and handling of personal information.

Privacy Assessments

City of Darwin undertakes several different types of assessments in relation to privacy. This includes Privacy Threshold Assessments (PTA) which will be undertaken on all projects and informs whether a more detailed Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) is required. A brief summary of our finalised PTAs and PIAs can be accessed here: 

Threshold assessments were completed on other Smart Darwin infrastructure such as Smart Parking sensors, Smart LED lights and environmental sensors. It was determined that personal information will not be collected, used or disclosed as part of commissioning these technologies. As such, a formal PIA is not required at this time. Should council wish to expand the use of this technology to involve personal information, a new PIA process will be initiated.

Please read Council’s Privacy statement for more information about:

• How council collects and manages personal information in accordance with the IPPs
• How to seek access to and correction of personal information held by council
• How to make a privacy complaint.