Your responsibilities

A privacy impact assessment (PIA) is an essential part of many projects and proposals, and can be used to help agencies identify the potential risks arising from their collection, use or handling of personal information, to find out if they are meeting their legal obligations.

PIAs focuses on identifying the ways a new proposal or operating system, or changes to an existing process may affect personal privacy, to help organisations make more informed decisions and better manage privacy risks.

It is important to decide whether to do a PIA early in a proposal's life. If you fail to identify how your project is likely to affect the individuals whose information you are collecting and using, there are real risks for your organisation and for the success of your project.

A Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) is a practical analytical tool you can use:

to identify whether a proposed project is likely to impact on the privacy of individuals affected by your project, either positively or negatively
to check whether your project is likely to comply with privacy laws
to make decisions about whether and how to adjust the proposal to manage any privacy risks and to maximise the benefits of protecting privacy well
as a reference point for future action as the project, or your business, changes.

For full guidance on whether you should do a PIA and step by step templates and tools on how to do a PIA, check out our PIA toolkit.

It is important to note that we cannot provide legal advice, so if you’re looking for confirmation about whether your agency’s statement or policy is complying with the Privacy Act, you will need to seek independent legal advice.