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The Privacy Act 2020 governs how organisations and businesses can collect, store, use and share your information. See a quick tour of the Privacy Principles as a PDF.
It ensures that:
There are also Privacy Codes of Practice that have privacy rules for personal information in specific areas, such as health, telecommunications, and credit reporting.
Visit Your Rights to learn more about your privacy rights under the Act. If you collect personal information, visit Your Responsibilities to learn about your obligations when collecting, storing and sharing this information.
The Privacy Act 2020 came into force on 1 December 2020, replacing the Privacy Act 1993. Visit our comparison table for a section-by-section comparison of the old and new Privacy Acts. You can find a summary of changes here.
The Privacy Act has 13 privacy principles that govern how businesses and organisations should collect, handle and use personal information. You can download a summary here.
The links below explore each of the privacy principles in more detail. We also have case notes that show real-life examples of how the principles have been applied.
