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ABS Web Site Privacy Statement
  

This privacy statement relates to the information collected in your use of the ABS website. It does not cover information collected in surveys conducted under the Census and Statistics Act 1905. For information about privacy of survey data, please see Survey Participant Information.

Our commitment

The Australian Bureau of Statistics is committed to protecting your privacy. It does so by conforming to the Privacy Commissioner’s Guidelines, which require transparent collection, appropriate and ethical use, and secure storage of personal information. We also adhere to the Information Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act of 1988.

The information you provide through this website will be kept secure by the ABS.

Information collected

The ABS monitors use of its site in order to improve the site and the website services provided to you. In doing so, we use first party cookies in order to collect the following information:

  • your IP address
  • the date and time of your visit
  • the pages you accessed and the documents you downloaded
  • the search terms you used
  • the previous site you visited
  • your top level domain name (such as .com, .gov, .au, et cetera),
  • your network location name (such as your internet service provider or organisation's name),
  • any cookies that your browser has presented to our server,
  • the browser, operating system and other information about your computer include the screen resolution, colour depth and various plugins that you used in visiting our site.

More information about first party cookies can be found further down on this page. This information is used by the ABS for this purpose only and will be used to improve our online services. We do not collect identifiable personal information about you if you only browse this website.

Personal information

When accessing specific ABS services <for example, Remote Access Data Laboratory (RADL)>, you may be required to provide personal information. This information will only be used for the stated purpose, and will not be disclosed without your consent unless the ABS is required by law to do so, for example, to comply with a search warrant or subpoena.

Email addresses

We will only use your email address for the purpose for which you provided it. It will not be added to a mailing list without your express permission, and will be removed from any ABS list at your request. We will not disclose your email address without your consent.

Cookies

A first party (or persistent) cookie is very small text file placed on your hard drive by our web server. It is essentially your identification card, and cannot be executed as code or deliver viruses. It is uniquely yours and can only be read by the server that gave it to you.

Using cookies allows the ABS to be more efficient. We can learn what information is important to our visitors, and what isn't. We can discard Web pages you don't use, and focus our efforts on information you need.

Some ABS on-line products and services also require your web browser to accept persistent (First Party) cookies. If you do not or cannot store cookies, it may be possible to acquire versions of these products and services on CD ROM or other media not connected to the Internet. Please contact the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for further information.

In order to help you further protect your privacy, we have also implemented the files required to support the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) recommendations. P3P enables the ABS to express our privacy practices in a standard format that can be retrieved automatically and interpreted easily by P3P compatible browsers. For more information on P3P, please read the Frequently Asked Questions about P3P.

Other sites

This site contains links to external websites, which are not covered by this privacy statement. We recommend that you review the privacy statement of each site you visit.

Accreditation

This site is accredited and maintained to Australian Government Internet security standards to ensure the confidentiality and/or integrity of information posted on the site. These standards meet or exceed Australian information security management standards (AS/NZS 4444).

Alternatives to the website

If you prefer not to submit information via the website, please contact the ABS, for advice on how to proceed. Please record where you are on the website and provide this information to the consultant who accepts your call.

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