Environment and Resource Management

Frequently asked questions about RTI and privacy

How can the RTI and Privacy Acts help?

The RTI and Privacy Acts impose several obligations on the department, while conferring the public with a number of rights: 

Do I need to know if my application should be dealt with under the RTI or the IP Act?

No.

If, for example, you apply for access to information under the RTI Act but the application could be dealt with under the Privacy Act, the department will offer you the opportunity to amend your application accordingly.

As the RTI and Privacy Acts provide similar rights of access, access applications made under those Acts will be referred to elsewhere in this information sheet as ‘information access applications’, unless there is a need in a particular circumstance to refer to a specific Act.

What should I do before lodging an information access application?

The department has a large amount of information already available to the public. Consequently, before you lodge an information access application, you may care to see if the following departmental sources contain what you are looking for:

You may also care to:

If you lodge an information access application and the information you seek is available through other means, the department will advise you accordingly, either in the letter communicating the outcome of your application or before the application is finalised.

How will the department help me to exercise my information access and amendment rights?

We will ensure that our RTI and Privacy service to you is of the highest professional standard. Our aim is to:

We will do this by balancing the information access rights in the RTI and Privacy Acts against the legitimate concerns of other people or organisations who may be affected if the information is released, and in accordance with the department’s responsibility to maintain correct information about you.

If you need help to make an information access application to the department, feel free to contact us.

The RTI and IP processes can be complicated. If you need assistance in understanding any element of that process, please contact Administrative Review.

What is personal information?

Personal information is defined in the Privacy Act as:

" … information or an opinion, including information or an opinion forming part of a database, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion."

A document need only contain one piece of information that is your personal information for it to be considered a personal information document.  We will take this into account when we determine if:

What is a document?

A document includes:

What if a document needs amending?

You can apply to the department to have any personal information about you in a document amended, if you believe that the information is incomplete, incorrect, out-of-date or misleading.

Who can apply?

Any person or organisation can apply for access to information held by the department.

However, organisations do not have personal information.  Consequently, an application cannot be made to amend information about an organisation.

Do I need to provide proof of identity?

If you apply for access to a document containing your personal information, or wish to have a document containing your personal information amended, you must provide proof of your identity within 10 days of making that application.  Documents that can be used to verify your identity include:

What do I need to provide if I am applying to access or amend information on behalf of someone else?

If you are acting on behalf of someone else (as an agent), you will need to provide evidence that you have been authorised to do so.

Examples of an agent’s authorisation include:

If you are acting as an agent for a person, and apply for access to documents containing that individual’s personal information, or to have such documents amended, you will also need to provide proof of his or her identity.

What fees and charges apply?

Information Privacy

If all the documents captured within the terms of your information access application contain your personal information, the application will be processed under the Privacy Act without an application fee or a processing charge.

However, a charge may be levied for the costs associated with providing an applicant access to documents released under the Privacy Act.  This may include copying costs, if you request paper copies of the documents.  Any such costs will be included in a letter to the applicant communicating the outcome of their application.

Right to Information

If an information access application captures a document that does not contain the personal information of the applicant, it will be processed under the RTI Act and the department will levy an application fee of $39.00 and may levy processing and access charges.  The RTI Act requires agencies to levy a charge of $6.00 for each fifteen minute period spent searching for, retrieving and processing documents that do not contain the applicant’s personal information.

If we determine that your information access application is subject to the fees and charges in the RTI Act, and the application fee has been paid, a charges estimate notice may be sent to you outlining:

If you agree to pay the estimated amount, work will commence on processing your information access application under the RTI Act.  The agreed amount must be paid in full, however, before you will be permitted to access any documents released to you.  You should note also that the charge attaches to the amount of time spent processing the documents; not to the number of documents that are released.

However, the charge can be waived if the department spends only a small period of time processing an information access application under the RTI Act, or if we decide that the income from the charge would be less than the cost of levying and collecting it.

Can I contest the charge?

If you are dissatisfied with the charges estimate notice:

If you wish to exercise these rights, you must notify the department in writing.  If you do not respond to this agency within 20 business days, you may be taken to have withdrawn the application.

More details of these rights will be provided to you in the charges estimate notice.

What if I believe the charge was incorrectly assessed?

The estimated processing charge will be based on an estimate of the time it will take to process your application. If you believe that the estimate is excessive, you can apply to have a more senior officer of the department review the charges estimate notice. That review must be decided within 20 business days of a request for review being made to the department.

An applicant can not apply to the Information Commissioner to have a charges estimate notice externally reviewed.

Can I have the charge waived?

If you are an individual, and you hold:

you can apply in writing to the department to have any processing and access charges waived.

Non-profit organisations can also apply in writing to the Information Commissioner to have the charges waived, but should do so before they lodge an RTI application. In deciding if the charge is to be waived, the Information Commissioner will take account of the nature and size of the organisation’s funding base and the amount of the organisations liquid funds.

If you require more information on waiving charges for non-profit organisations, please contact the Office of the Information Commissioner.

How long will it be before I receive a decision letter?

Information access applications under the RTI and Privacy Acts are subject to legal timeframes of 25 business days that commence upon receipt of a valid information access application. However, this is a total of 25 business days, and the clock may stop and restart at various times in the process.

The RTI and Privacy Acts also require us to consult with third parties if we believe the release of information would be of concern to them. The Acts provide an additional 10 business days within which to undertake any such consultation.

The department must, within these timeframes, issue you with a letter explaining the decision on your information access application.

What happens if the decision letter is not issued within the legal timeframe?

While the department will always endeavour to issue your decision letter within the legal timeframe, the size of an application or the workload at a particular time will sometimes restrict our ability to do so.

The RTI and Privacy Acts recognise that a government agency may not always be able to issue the decision notice within the timeframe. Consequently, if the department is unable to issue your decision letter within the legal timeframe the Acts allow as to ask for your agreement to extend it. If you permit us to continue processing the application, we must issue the decision by the deadline to which you agree. 

We can seek your agreement to extend the timeframe at any time during the RTI or Privacy process. 

In most instances, agreeing to extend the legal timeframe will be in the applicant’s best interests, as the department often only needs an additional couple of days to issue the decision letter. Also, if the application captures a lot of documents, the department will often issue an interim decision on the majority of the documents before the timeframe expires, and will seek your approval to extend the timeframe for the remainder of the documents.

If you have not received your decision letter within the legal timeframe, you have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner to have the matter reviewed on the grounds that the agency is deemed to have refused you access to the documents to which you have sought access. The Information Commissioner may allow the agency further time in which to issue the decision letter.

If you are inclined to apply to the Information Commissioner because you have not received your decision letter, you may consider contacting the department beforehand, as we may be in the process of issuing the decision letter, or may be able to reach an agreement as to the best way to address the delay.

What will the decision letter contain?

The RTI and IP Acts oblige us to provide you with a decision notice containing:

When will I be able to access any documents released to me?

If documents released under an information access application are not subject to third party review rights, they will be available to the applicant upon receipt of the decision notice and payment in full of any applicable processing or application charges.

However, if a third party with whom we have consulted objects to the release of any documents captured within the request, we will not release those documents until the third party’s review rights under the Acts have either been exhausted or have expired.  This is known as deferred access. As there are several forms of review, this process can add significantly to the time taken to finalise an access application.

We will advise you promptly of any anticipated delays, and particularly if we are proposing to defer your access to the documents for which you have applied.

How can I access the documents released to me?

In most cases, the documents released in response to an access application will be provided electronically on a compact disk. A charge will be not levied for the disk.

However, if a client:

the agency will take any steps reasonable in the circumstances to provide access to the documents.

The agency can levy an access charge of 20 cents per A4 page for copies, and a reasonable amount for providing access in any other form.

We will advise you of any costs associated with processing your information access application and, where possible, will help you to keep costs to a minimum.

Can I inspect the original documents?

DERM generally provides documents released under the RTI and Privacy Acts electronically, on compact discs.  However, upon request, the agency can arrange for the documents to be inspected at an office of the department.  Arranging this form of access will likely take longer, though, as the documents will firstly need to be prepared for inspection, and then transported to the office at which the inspection is to be conducted.

Any information that we decide cannot be released will be removed before the inspection is conducted.

Will the information released to me be made available to anyone else?

Possibly.

The RTI Act allows the department to include documents released in response to an RTI application in a disclosure log on its internet site. Documents included in that log will be available to any person who seeks access to them. We must, however, remove the applicant's personal information from the documents before they are made available in the disclosure log.

We cannot include any documents released under RTI in the disclosure log until:

What will the department do with any personal information I provide as part of an RTI or Privacy application?

Any personal information you supply to the department as part of an information access or amendment application under the Right to Information Act 2009 and/or the Information Privacy Act 2009 will be used to assess and process that application in accordance with provisions of those Acts. That information may also be used or disclosed to another agency for reporting purposes or, where appropriate, to transfer all or part of the application to another Queensland Government agency. If you make an access application, the agency will take that to mean that you consent to the department using and disclosing your information in this way. 

For more information about your rights under the Information Privacy Act 2009, please contact Administrative Review.

What are my rights of review?

If you are dissatisfied with any decision made on your application to access information, you have the right to have that decision reviewed. A senior officer of the department will conduct the first stage of the review process, the internal review, and will issue a decision within 20 business days of our receiving the internal review application.

If you are still dissatisfied after the internal review, you can write to the Information Commissioner and request an external review.

More details on your review rights are included with the decision notices issued in response to applications for accessing and amending information, or can be obtained from the Administrative Review unit on request.

A review rights information sheet is also available on the department’s website.

Where do I apply to access or amend information?

You can apply online to access or amend information. This facility allows for online lodgement and payment.

Alternatively, you can apply:

Manager, Administrative Review
Department of Environment and Resource Management
GPO Box 2454
Brisbane Qld 4001
Phone (07) 3896 3705

Administrative Review

If you make an information access application to us and we find that the information you want to access is held by another government agency, we will ask that agency to process your application and will inform you of this promptly.

Where do I get further information?

If you require additional information on RTI or Privacy, please contact Administrative Review.

If you believe you have not received an appropriate level of service, please contact us so the situation can be addressed as soon as possible.

Last updated 1 July 2011

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