What is personal information?

Personal information is any information which tells us something about a specific individual. The information does not need to name the individual, as long as they are identifiable in other ways, like through their home address.

The Privacy Act is concerned with the content of personal information, rather than the specific form that content is in. This means that all sorts of things can contain personal information, including notes, emails, recordings, photos and scans, whether they are in hard copy or electronic form.