ForceNet Privacy Statement

The Australian Defence Privacy Policy is designed to inform individuals about the way Defence collects, stores, uses and discloses personal information (as defined in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act)). This policy also provides guidance about how you can access, or seek correction of, personal information, held by Defence, about you.

The Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), contained in Schedule 1 of the Privacy Act, regulate how Defence, as an APP entity, collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information.

Use of personal information

The personal information collected by ForceNet may be used by, or disclosed to, other persons within Defence or to other agencies such as other Defence Organisation sections that require this information for official purpose where such use or disclosure is necessary.

Defence will not use or disclose your personal information for any other purposes without first obtaining your expressed or implied consent. Defence may however be required to disclose your personal information without your consent if the disclosure is:

  • Required or authorised by law (including the Privacy Act).
  • Required in order to investigate an unlawful activity.
  • Required by an enforcement body for investigative activities.
  • Necessary to prevent a serious and imminent threat to a person's life, health or safety.

When you access ForceNet, our server makes a record of your visit and logs the following information to assist with site administration and maintenance:

  • the user's server address,
  • the user's top level domain name (for example .com, .gov, .au, .uk etc),
  • the date and time of visit to the site; the pages accessed and documents downloaded,
  • the previous site visited (please note: this only applies when the user has accessed ForceNet by following a link to ForceNet from an external site, and only if that external site also does not have a Referrer-Policy which prevents it. There is no visual data captured from ForceNet or any previously visited website),
  • the type of browser or device used, and
  • when an unexpected error occurs, additional technical information is collected about the cause of the error and the device that it occurred on.

As mentioned above, this information is collected primarily for administrative and technical support purposes. However, the information may also be disclosed to:

  • an Australian Federal, State or Territory investigative authority to support investigations; or
  • other Commonwealth agencies, where necessary, to perform their statutory obligations.

ADF Recruit Referral Scheme

The ADF Recruit Referral Scheme is an initiative by Defence Force Recruiting (DFR). ADF Members can quickly and conveniently refer individuals interested in joining the ADF to DFR by sharing a QR code. The QR code will open on an enquiry form on an individual's phone. The Copyright and Privacy Terms and Conditions are detailed at the following link, Copyright & Privacy - ADF Careers on how Defence will collect, store and action details for ADF Recruitment.

Defence Classifieds Disclaimer

Defence cannot control any information that you supply from being used for purposes other than that intended, therefore it is recommended that you utilise the ForceNet message system or Defence internal messaging (Outlook or Skype) in preference to providing personal contact details.

ForceNet Normal Administration Practice (NAP)

In some instances content is removed when it no longer provides useful information to audiences, is outdated or no longer accurate. The National Archives of Australia  (NAA) provides advice on the archival requirements for Australian Government websites.

Normal administrative practice (NAP) is a process that allows agencies to destroy non records without authorisation from the NAA.  The NAP enables Defence to reduce the amount of unnecessary information it holds, which means we save on storage costs and ensure the efficiency of our systems. NAP must only be used for identified non records. These can include:

  • personal UNOFFICIAL emails
  • junk mail
  • newsletters/external publications
  • empty physical and digital files
  • duplicates of information that has already been saved in Objective

ForceNet deletes/destroys data as a part of its normal operations. ForceNet is not a commonwealth record under the Archives Act 1983. The information on ForceNet is provided from an authorised source – such as PMKeyS, which is subjected to the Archive Act. In addition to the system limitations of archiving data from ForceNet, it would be duplication of records that are already managed as a Commonwealth record.

The ForceNet NAP triggers for deletion include:

  • Period of time since group/unit created
    • Lack of activity or
    • Lack of members
    • Group no longer exists in the organisation
  • Refreshing a Group
    • Deleting training course members on completion of a course
  • Deleting Defence Classified posts
    • After 21 days from the original post
  • A group or unit that is no longer required/relevant due to organisational changes**

**Note: When a group or unit is considered for deletion – if it is deemed appropriate to be saved and archived – ForceNet Admin will flag the group/unit for archival management.

 

ForceNet Admin conduct routine reviews of Support requests (JIRA) and user activity that highlights potential justification for deletion. You will not be notified of the deletion.

Sending us emails

When you send Defence an email, our email servers will collect and hold your email address, and the content of that email, for the purpose of responding to, and assisting with, your enquiry. Your email address will not be added to a mailing list unless you supplied it to Defence for that reason.

When emailing Defence, please also provide us with all information relevant to/in support of your query so that Defence may supply an informed response.

Further information

For further information about how:

  1. Defence holds your personal information;
  2. you can apply for access to, or seek a correction of, that personal information; or
  3. to make a written complaint regarding Defence’s management of your personal information,

kindly refer to the Defence Privacy Policy.

Questions regarding the Defence Privacy Policy may be emailed to Defence Privacy, at Defence.Privacy@defence.gov.au, or sent via regular mail to:

Defence People Group - Defence Privacy Department of Defence

R1-01-C

PO Box 7901

CANBERRA BC ACT 2601

Updated 05 November 2024