Two things missing from your website!
Are these two things missing from your website? Terms of Use and a Privacy Statement! As the owner of a website, it is impossible for you to be able to control who has access to your site. Therefore it is important that you have the following two items on your website!
Terms of Use and Privacy Statement
Terms of Use and a Privacy Statement are a protective measure for you, the owner, against liability. You need to tell people how they can use your website. Tell them what is prohibited and a disclaimer that limits your liability is critical.
The Australian Privacy Principle (APP) requires an agency or organisation to have a clearly expressed and up-to-date APP privacy policy. This policy must describe how it manages personal information. By law, in Australia, you are required to cover particular topics.
Your APP Privacy Policy must cover all the following topics:
- The kinds of personal information that you collect and hold
- How you collect personal information
- How you hold personal information
- The purposes for which you collect, hold, use and disclose personal information
- How an individual may access their personal information and seek correction of it
- How an individual may complain if you or a contractor breaches the APPs or a binding registered APP code
- Whether you are likely to disclose personal information to overseas recipients (including a related body corporate), and the likely countries that information may be sent
You must take reasonable steps to make the APP privacy policy available free of charge and in an appropriate form.
- Is the privacy policy available for free?
- Is it available on your website?
- If the privacy policy is published on your website, it is in a form appropriate for website publication?
For example, it is:- easy to download
- accessible, including to people with a disability
Regardless of your target audience, it should be able to be easily read and understood by any 14 year old. The APP requires you to make your privacy policy available free of charge and in an appropriate form. You should regularly review and update your privacy policy to ensure that it reflects your current personal information handling practices. If your entity has a website, you should publish it on your website!
If you do not have them, then now is the time to get a ‘Terms of Use’ and a ‘Privacy Statement’ for your website.
