2025 Census Test Employment Collection Notice

This Collection Notice explains the collection of personal information for applicants and employees on short-term employment contracts employed under the Census and Statistics Regulation 2016 for the purposes of the 2025 Census Test.  

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collects personal information for different purposes. The ABS Recruitment Privacy Statement and ABS Privacy Policies provide more details about how personal information is collected, handled and protected. These are available on the ABS website at www.abs.gov.au/privacy. 

Your personal information is being collected by the ABS and a range of contracted and sub-contracted third-party providers. Further information on third-party providers and their collection of personal information is provided below. 

The ABS collects personal information when you submit an expression of interest or application for a temporary Census field role via the LiveHire platform (which is made available by Humanforce Holdings Pty Ltd the parent company of LiveHire Ltd). Your personal information will also be collected via other third-party providers for the purposes of assessing your suitability and eligibility for employment and, if you accept a role, employing you and managing your employment. Further information is provided below.

The ABS and third-party providers collect and hold different kinds of personal information to assess your suitability and eligibility for employment and, if you accept a role, manage your employment. Personal information collected may include: 

• general contact and identification details (e.g. name, current and previous addresses from the past 5 years, email address, phone number, date of birth, documents to establish your proof of identity)
• bank account, tax file number and superannuation details
• contact details of your nominated referees and emergency contact
• information about your education and work history, qualifications and skills, and eligibility to work in Australia
• sensitive personal information, such as information about your medical history or specific disability or condition, criminal record and racial or ethnic origin
• information about your location in real time to provide support and ensure safety
• health information where there is an accident or incident in the workplace.

When apps and browsers are used online, we may also collect information supplied by your browser. For more information refer to the Website privacy, copyright and disclaimer. 

We collect personal information to hire and manage the Census field workforce. We use personal information for the following activities: 

Recruitment:

Personal information is used to verify identity and employment history, assess ability, suitability and eligibility to work on the Census Test, onboard successful applicants as ABS employees and to monitor the progress and outcomes of our recruitment activity. 

Payment and reimbursement: 

We use personal financial information such as bank account and tax file number to pay salaries, allowances and other payments.

Training:

We use limited personal information such as name, contact details, location and role information to provide training.

Workload allocation, materials, support and monitoring: 

We use name, phone number, email address and address to allocate, support and monitor field work and to communicate with Census field employees. We use address to mail materials to Census field employees required for their role. 

Safety:

We use phone number, address and location when you check in and out of work. We use this information to ensure employee safety while undertaking field work. We also use information about your location in real time to provide support and ensure safety. We use emergency contact details if we are unable to contact you and are concerned for your safety and in other emergency situations.

Future communication:

Where you have opted in to receive communication from the ABS about employment opportunities and Census related activities, we may use your contact information to contact you in the future for these purposes. 

Personal information collected in relation to the recruitment and employment of the Census field workforce will be retained and deleted in accordance with the relevant National Archives of Australia Record Authorities issued under the Archives Act 1983, including, but not limited to ABS Records Authority and AFDA Express V2.

Protection of personal information by contracted third-party providers must meet the requirements of the Privacy Act 1988 and Australian Privacy Principles. Third-party providers (except for LiveHire where you have an active candidate profile) will destroy or return all personal information to the ABS once the 2025 Census Test is completed.

Personal and sensitive information used and handled by the ABS is stored in secure ABS environments, in the AWS cloud in Australia. The ABS maintains restricted access to relevant authorised ABS staff and manages information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988, the Australian Privacy Principles and other relevant legislation.  The secure ABS environment meets all Australian Government privacy and security requirements.

If we did not collect your personal information, we would not be able to process your application, employ you, pay you, manage field work or meet our work health and safety responsibilities. 

We share relevant personal information with contracted third-party providers responsible for recruitment, or for employment-related activities such as the payment of salaries, allowances and other payments. We also use contracted third party providers to provide ICT and other services to support our activities. We may also share relevant personal information with third-party providers for the purpose of paying superannuation and in relation to compensation and rehabilitation in the event of injury.

Contracted third-party providers are legally bound to meet privacy standards and our expectations. They also have their own privacy policies, processes and security protections which we review to ensure their approach to privacy reflects our own. We have contracted with the following third-party providers to support the Census field workforce recruitment and operations:

LiveHire – a candidate and talent management provider and supplier of the LiveHire platform used by ABS to manage recruitment processes.  Please see the LiveHire Privacy Policy here - Privacy Policy | LiveHire. 

LiveHire has subcontracted Checkmate Technology Pty Ltd (Checkmate Tech) to provide reference checking with candidate preferred referees and criminal history background checks with Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC).  Please see the Checkmate Tech privacy policy here - Privacy Policy |Checkmate Tech.

LiveHire also provide the LiveOnboard platform in the LiveHire suite, which is used by the ABS for management of recruitment. Onboard Express is a parent company of LiveOnboard.  Please see the LiveOnboard/Onboard Express privacy policy here - Privacy Policy | Onboard Express.

EPI-USE – a human resources and payroll provider used by the ABS to manage the payroll Systems, Applications and Products (SAP) system and processes. The ABS is the data controller and EPI-USE Australia is the data storage system. See their privacy policy here -  Privacy Policy | EPI-USE 

Androgogic - a learning management platform provider. The ABS is the data controller and Androgogic is the data storage system. Please see the Androgogic privacy policy here - Privacy Policy

CriticalArc (SafeZone) – provider of a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) based technology to support Census field staff safety requirements. Please see the SafeZone privacy policy here - Privacy Policy

SwiftDigital – an Australian based email distribution service. The ABS is the data controller and SwiftDigital is the data storage system. See their privacy policy here - Website Privacy Policy | Swift Digital.

National Mail and Marketing – a warehousing, mail fulfilment and digital printing provider engaged by the ABS to dispatch role-required material to employees. Please see their privacy policy here - Privacy Policy | National Mailing & Marketing.

We collect personal information to help us run the Census and Census Test under authority of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act 1975, the Census and Statistics Act 1905 and the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. 

The ABS will not disclose your personal information overseas. When personal information used to help run the Census is stored in the cloud, it is kept in Australia. 

Some third-party providers may disclose personal information overseas. Please refer to the individual third-party policies for further information. 

During the candidate process, applicants can correct or update personal information in LiveHire or when employed in the EPI-USE platform. Please contact LiveHire or Checkmate directly via their contact details (available on their websites). Further information is available in their privacy policies.

ABS employees can update their personal information and other employment-related details through self-service options provided to ABS employees.  

If you are a previous ABS employee, you can contact the ABS to update your contact details or opt out of future communications via ABS General Enquiries. 

The ABS Privacy Policies have information about how you can complain if you feel we have not adequately protected your privacy. The policies describe how we will respond to your complaint and what you can do if you are not satisfied with our response. 

You can contact the ABS Privacy Officer (details below) who will respond to your enquiries or assist with complaints. 

By email: privacy@abs.gov.au
By post: ABS Privacy Officer, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Locked Bag 10, Belconnen ACT 2617