Privacy Statement

This statement applies to all who access the Productivity Commission website.

As an agency of the Australian Government, the Productivity Commission is subject to the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 and the Commonwealth Crimes Act 1914 which regulate, among other things, the collection, storage, quality, use and disclosure of personal information.

The Productivity Commission's web server makes a record of each visit to the site and logs the following information for statistical purposes: the user's Internet Service Provider (ISP) address, the user's top level domain name (e.g. .com, .gov, .au, etc.), the date and time of the visit to the site, the pages accessed and documents downloaded, the previous site visited and the type of browser used.

These logfiles are used for statistical purposes to help improve the services offered by the website and to diagnose any problems with our server. No attempt will be made to identify individual users or their browsing activities except, in the event of an investigation, where a law enforcement agency may exercise a warrant to inspect our logfiles.

When an attempt is made to 'hack into' the Productivity Commission's internal network, the user's ISP and relevant law enforcement agencies may be notified.

The Commission's website uses temporary web browser cookies to enable better analysis of user navigation patterns and to provide additional information to our web usage analysis software. These cookies can be blocked by users without affecting their interaction with the Commission's site.

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. If you communicate with the Productivity Commission by email or via an electronic feedback form we will record your email address and other personal information only for the purpose for which you have provided it and will not pass it on to third parties or disclose it to anyone without your consent.

All personal data described in the preceding section are stored in our transmission log files and archived for a period as yet to be determined, but likely to be at least 12 months and up to 7 years. Again, this data are only used for website and system administration including monitoring to prevent security breaches.

Users of this site should also be aware of the inherent security risks associated with transmission of personal information over the Internet and bear this in mind when deciding whether or not to use the electronic communication facilities available on this site or more conventional means (telephone, fax or through the post).

This website contains links to other sites and the Productivity Commission is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these sites.

When commenting on a Productivity Commission blog you will need to register some basic details. If the Productivity Commission quotes a comment from a blog, the contributor's name as registered will be attributed.