Have you set your goals for the new year in your agency? Put a focus on proactively providing the Australian community access to information you hold, which will help to build trust and confidence in your agency. 

A warm welcome to the new year from all of us at the OAIC! We’re back after a short break and are looking forward to promoting and upholding privacy and information access rights in 2025. 📹 Some of our staff share what they think will be topical in privacy and freedom of information in 2025.

We’re closed from 5 pm AEDT today until Thursday 2 January. Wishing you an enjoyable, safe and festive week. See you in 2025!

The OAIC has made appointments to key new roles in our senior executive leadership team. Ashleigh McDonald has been appointed Executive General Manager, Information Rights. She’ll lead our FOI and privacy case management, and intake and triage branches, with responsibility for strategically enhancing these functions to ensure the best outcomes for the Australian community. Rowena Park will take up the role of Executive General Manager, Regulatory Action. She’ll lead our experts in enforcement, investigations and compliance, ensuring the OAIC takes proactive and strategic action, including around new technologies and emerging harms. We look forward to welcoming both Ashleigh and Rowena in February. These appointments are part of an organisational redesign that will ensure the OAIC is a harm-focused, proactive regulator. More information and bios: https://lnkd.in/g7rh3vmV

The Australian Information Commissioner has agreed to a $50 million payment program as part of a settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc. The payment scheme will be open to eligible Australian users impacted by the Cambridge Analytica incident. Media release: https://lnkd.in/guF45ijQ

We’re hiring for several roles. Could you be our next: - Principal Director (Head of Legal), Corporate Legal Services (EL 2) - Senior Lawyer, Corporate Legal Services (EL 1) - Lawyer, Corporate Legal Services (APS 5/6) - Assistant Director, Data Analytics (EL 1)? Head to our website to apply: https://lnkd.in/gKmJV8jq Applications close from 9 January.

International collaboration was in full swing in our Sydney office last Thursday. Our commissioners met with senior security and economic officials responsible for developing Cambodia’s cyber security and telecommunications policy. The group discussed how Australia promotes and upholds privacy and information access rights, and the benefits of open, accountable and transparent government. The commissioners also met with representatives from Thailand’s Office of the National Digital Economy and Society Commission, civil society and industry. They discussed aspects of the Australian privacy framework that align with a study project being undertaken by the group.   Collaborating and sharing information with international peers is an important element of the OAIC’s contemporary approach to regulation and key to advancing interoperability between global privacy and information access frameworks.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus joined our commissioners Elizabeth Tydd, Carly Kind and Toni Pirani in addressing our people today. The Attorney-General spoke about the importance of privacy and information access rights for all Australians. He reflected on how privacy has grown in importance to Australians and discussed initiatives to strengthen the country’s privacy framework to meet community expectations and make sure it is fit for the digital age, including Parliament’s recent passing of the Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024. The Attorney-General also spoke about access to information, highlighting the OAIC's vital work in this area and that Australia’s freedom of information system is essential to a robust, fair and effective democracy.

Today is UNESCO’s International Day of People with Disability.   It is crucial that government agencies make information easily accessible to all Australians.   Do you work in freedom of information or information management for a government agency?   When considering your plans to make agency information available, take the time to think about what barriers people may face to accessing it. Consider accessibility and inclusion at every stage in your plans.   #IDPwD

Our commissioners Elizabeth Tydd and Toni Pirani recently attended the Association of Information Access Commissioners (AIAC) meeting hosted by Ombudsman SA. Discussion focused on the challenges new technologies present to government transparency and accountability. AIAC members remind agencies that good data governance is more important than ever as governments increasingly rely on emerging technologies to capture and store information and to help in decision making. Data governance is also important in an environment where trust in government is declining, and disinformation represents a real threat to democracies around the world. Read the meeting summary: https://lnkd.in/gbwxCKcZ