What can I do if an agency has lost or accidentally disclosed my information?

If an agency has accidentally disclosed your personal information to the wrong person, or otherwise lost it, you should raise your concerns with the agency's privacy officer in the first instance.

The agency should be able to let you know exactly what information was involved and what, if anything, you can do to protect yourself.

For instance, if the information lost contained your financial information, you may need to consider contacting your bank, cancelling credit cards, or contacting the credit reporters (Centrix, illion, and Equifax) to request that they freeze your credit files. This could help prevent anyone from fraudulently obtaining credit in your name (see more here).

If you are not satisfied with the agency’s response, and believe you have suffered harm(external link) as a result of the disclosure or loss of your information, you can make a complaint to us. If the agency has not notified you about this as soon as it could and this has had an impact on you, then you can make a complaint to us about the agency for failing to notify you.