The Website Privacy Statement explains how your personal information (being information capable of identifying you as an individual) will be treated as you access and interact with the NSW Land Registry Services (NSW LRS) online portal: online.nswlrs.com.au. This information is collected for the lawful administration of the functions of NSW LRS. At all times NSW LRS endeavours to comply with the privacy principles contained in the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 NSW (PPIP Act).

This Statement is written in simple language. The specific legal obligations of NSW LRS when collecting and handling your personal information are outlined in PPIP Act and in particular in the Information Protection Principles (IPPs) found in that Act, which regulate the collection, storage, use and disclosure of personal information held by government agencies. 

You can also find more information in our NSW LRS Privacy Statement (PDF 124KB), which explains how we manage personal information in line with the PPIP Act. 

What information do we collect?

When you look at the pages on this site, our computers automatically record information that identifies, for each page accessed:

•    the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the machine which has accessed it;
•    your top-level domain name (for example .com, .gov, .au, .uk etc.);
•    the address of your server;
•    the date and time of your visit to the site;
•    the pages accessed and documents downloaded;
•    the previous site visited; and the type of browser and operating system you have used.

Online transactions

If you place an order for products on this site, or use an online service that attracts a fee in addition to the information above, we will also keep a record of:

•    your payment information:
•    delivery details for products that cannot be supplied online and
•    contact information.

This information will be used to fulfil your order or to provide the relevant service and will be retained securely as part of our business records.

Mailing lists

Should you subscribe to a mailing list your email address will only be used for the purpose for which it has been provided.

All emails from our mailing lists will provide you with an opportunity to cancel your subscription and have your email address removed from our records.

Cookies

'Cookies' are small pieces of text data that a web server can store on, and later retrieve from, a user's computer. They do not personally identify you, but do identify your browser. Cookies can be either 'persistent' or 'session' based. Persistent cookies are stored on your computer, contain an expiration date, and may be used to track your browsing behaviour upon return to the issuing web site. Session cookies are short-lived, are used only during a browsing session, and expire when you shut down your browser.

This site uses persistent cookies.

They record your preferences in relation to your use of the site and provide us with other information about your enquiry that allows us to recognise your browser if you return to this website in the future. This allows NSW LRS to present information that may be most relevant to you based on your previous visits. They also help NSW LRS to understand what parts of the site users find the most useful and improve the effectiveness of the website.

The cookies on this site do not read the information on your hard drive. They do not make your computer perform any actions or make your computer send information to any other computer via the internet. NSW LRS makes no attempt to associate cookies with users' names or identities. Our server cannot find out your name or email address, or anything about your computer, by using cookies.

How do we use the information collected?

The information collected during each visit is aggregated with similar logged information and published in reports in order for NSW LRS to identify patterns of usage of the site. This will assist us in improving this site and the services offered on it.

NSW LRS will not disclose or publish information that identifies individual computers, or potentially identifies sub-groupings of addresses, without consent or otherwise in accordance with the New South Wales Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998.

What exceptions are there to this rule?

NSW LRS will collect, use and disclose more extensive information than stated above in the following circumstances:

•    unauthorised attempts to access files which are not published NSW Land Registry Services pages;
•    unauthorised tampering or interference with files published on the site;
•    unauthorised attempts to index the contents of the site by other sites;
•    attempts to intercept messages of other users of the site;
•    communications which are defamatory, abusive, vilify individuals or groups or which give rise to a suspicion that an offence is being committed; and
•    attempts to otherwise compromise the security of the web server, breach the laws of the State of New South Wales or Commonwealth of Australia, or interfere with the enjoyment of the site by other users.

NSW LRS reserves the right to make disclosures to relevant authorities where the use of this site raises a suspicion that an offence is being, or has been, committed.

In the event of an investigation, NSW LRS will provide access to data to any law enforcement agency that may execute a warrant to inspect our logs.

Is the information stored securely?

Yes. Information collected is stored in an appropriately secure format and held by NSW LRS for archival purposes. When the information is no longer required for the purposes for which it was collected it is disposed of securely and in accordance with NSW LRS management of personal information requirements.

Notifiable Data Breaches

Effective from 22 February 2018, the amendments to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) require NSW LRS to notify the Australian Information Commissioner and affected individuals of certain types of data breaches. A notifiable data breach happens when there is unauthorised access to, unauthorised disclosure of, or loss of, personal information which is likely to result in serious harm to the individual to whom the information relates. NSW LRS has updated its Data Breach Response Plan to ensure that it complies with the new requirements and is able to respond quickly to any suspected data breaches.

What will we do with information provided as feedback?

NSW LRS provides feedback facilities on this site to allow users to provide input into the future development of the site and to comment on the provision of service by NSW LRS.

The provision of personal details on feedback is optional.

Users provide personal details for the purpose of receiving a reply to their feedback. This information will only be used for the purpose for which it was provided. We will not add your email address or name to any mailing list.

NSW LRS may publish aggregated information about feedback on the site, to the extent that it does not identify or cannot be used to identify individual users.

Who else has access to information within the Office?

A limited number of NSW LRS officers through the use of third-party analytical software such as Google Analytics. Access to the raw data is restricted to these officers for the purpose of analysis and to report on the success of the site in meeting the Office's communication and access objectives.

If you would like to access information held about you by NSW LRS please contact:

NSW LRS Privacy Coordinator
GPO Box 15
Sydney NSW 2001

Correction of personal information

Under the PPIP Act, you have the right to access any personal information held by NSW LRS. You also have a right to have your own personal information, held by NSW LRS corrected in certain circumstances, for example if you wanted to update your contact details.

NSW LRS encourages people wanting to access or amend their own personal information to contact us with their request.

Public registers

NSW LRS maintains several public registers in accordance with relevant legislation. Generally, a fee is associated with access to and amendment of personal information held on public record.

By virtue of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Regulation 2014, certain registers maintained by NSW LRS are exempt from the public register requirements of the PPIP Act.

Suppression of personal information

Requests for suppression of personal information from public registers should be made in writing and forwarded to:

The Information and Privacy Coordinator
Office of the Registrar General
McKell Building
2-24 Rawson Place
SYDNEY NSW 2000

Will this policy be updated over time?

Due to the developing nature of privacy principles for online communication, this policy may be modified or expanded in light of new developments, issues or amendments to the PPIP Act or Regulations or any other changes to the law that may arise from time to time. The amended policy will be posted to this site and will operate from the time it is posted.