In this Privacy Policy, 'us', 'we', 'our' or 'NSW LRS' means Australian Registry Investments (ACN 617 926 020) as trustee for the Australian Registry Investments Trust (trading as NSW Land Registry Services). Our Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use, store and disclose your personal information, and how we comply with our privacy obligations under the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (NSW) (PPIP Act) and Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act).
By providing personal information to us, you consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and any other arrangements that apply between us. We may change our Privacy Policy from time to time by publishing changes to it on our website. We encourage you to check our website periodically to ensure that you are aware of our current Privacy Policy.
Legal requirements
NSW LRS is required to comply with both the PPIP Act and the Privacy Act. To the extent there is any conflict or inconsistency between any of NSW LRS’ privacy obligations under this legislation, NSW LRS is required to comply with its obligations under the Privacy Act to the extent of such conflict or inconsistency. This legislation establishes certain principles which regulate how NSW LRS collects, manages, stores, processes, uses and discloses your personal information.
Certain exemptions in the legislation mean that, in particular circumstances, NSW LRS does not have to comply with these principles. For example, we may not need to comply where: (i) personal information is required for law enforcement purposes, including in circumstances where unlawful activity or serious misconduct is suspected, (ii) personal information is required for the protection of the public revenue, or (iii) where authorised by legislation.
Maintenance of public Registers
NSW LRS has statutory obligations to make certain information available on the following public registers, which are operated and maintained by NSW LRS (collectively the 'Registers'):
- the Torrens Title Register, kept under the Real Property Act 1900;
- the Water Access Licence Register kept under the Water Management Act 2000;
- the General Register of Deeds kept under the Conveyancing Act 1919;
- any index kept under section 198 of the Conveyancing Act 1919;
- the Central Register of Restrictions kept under Part 24 of the Conveyancing Act 1919; and
- the Purchasers’ Index, the Street Address Index and the Owners’ Index that are kept in connection with the Torrens Title Register.
Where required for the operation and maintenance of the Registers, your personal information may be uploaded, and made publicly available, on the Registers.
What personal information do we collect and how
Personal information means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable. For example, this may include your name, age, gender, postcode and contact details.
The types of personal information that we collect may include:
- your name, address, age or date of birth, contact details (including phone and email);
- information collected in connection with our maintenance of the Registers, including information:
- about real property titles, interests and other dealings connected to you, such as transfer and mortgage documents, leasehold information, etc;
- required, pursuant to statute, to amend any land titles records or other interest recorded on the Registers (for example, information submitted in dealing forms and other instruments connected to your lodgment case); and
- related to your lodgment case which is not recorded on the Registers (for example, Notice of Sale information) or otherwise used to support your lodgment (for example, documentation confirming your right to conduct the transaction, powers of attorney, wills and probate, etc);
- information collected for, or in relation to, particular NSW LRS products or services, including credit card information and/or bank account details;
- any personal information (if any) you provide when submitting feedback on our website;
- Internet Protocol ("IP") addresses, and other identifying information you may provide when connecting and / or accessing NSW LRS' website or other portals; and
- any other personal information that may be required in order to facilitate your dealings with us, including information that is used to verify your identity (including information contained on your passport (e.g. place of birth or passport number etc.), rates notices, Medicare card and drivers licence).
How we collect personal information
Directly from you
We may collect personal information directly from you or your authorised representative acting on your behalf (such as a solicitor, surveyor, information broker, etc.) when you lodge a dealing you have completed, access NSW LRS products or services, or when you contact us by phone, email, or through our website.
From third parties
We may also collect personal information about you from third parties, including third parties who access or otherwise interact with the Registers, including when we undertake audits of those third party operators. These third parties include electronic lodgement network operators (or ELNOs) who provide services to electronically lodge documents with us, information brokers, or government authorities.
We may also collect information about you from other publicly available sources.
In addition, when you apply for a job or position with us, we may collect certain information from you (including your name, contact details, working history and relevant records check) from any recruitment consultant, your previous employers and others who may be able to provide information to us to assist in our decision on whether or not to make you an offer of employment or engage you under a contract.
How we use and disclose your personal information
We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for our business operations and activities, including:
- to maintain the Registers and meet our associated statutory obligations (e.g. to verify your identity in relation to a particular dealing, or to undertake subscriber audits of electronic network operators or other third parties who access the Registers);
- to facilitate the provision of NSW LRS products and services, for example:
- document registration services;
- titling and plan services;
- information supply services, including:
- providing information maintained on (or derived from) the Registers, or managed and maintained by NSW LRS (including Notice of Sale data), or verifying third party information based on the same;
- combining data maintained on (or derived from) the Registers with other data sources, including data maintained by NSW LRS in connection with its products and services (including notice of sale data), or other publicly available data sources;
- developing or providing alerts, notices or other services based on activity conducted on the Registers;
- activities which include the combination, compilation, organisation, integration or analysis of such information in order to facilitate the information supply services, or to create any information supply output, report or insight.
- Information supply services are provided to third parties, including to information brokers or information services providers or directly to other third parties who are receiving an approved information supply, validation or confirmation or information product service from NSW LRS;
- for our internal administrative operations, including to facilitate access to NSW LRS' online portal, and otherwise measure and improve our services and business operations;
- to communicate with you and to provide customer support (by sending service, support and administrative messages, and (where permitted) marketing and promotional messages and other information that may be of interest to you, including where you have subscribed to a mailing list we operate);
- to consider your employment application;
- undertaking subscriber audits of electronic network operators or other third parties who access our registers, or when in conjunction with audits of our systems by relevant government authorities or their agents;
- as required by law (for example, personal information collected as part of the conveyancing process is provided to the Valuer General for distribution to Office of State Revenue, local councils and other rating authorities and utilities. Under certain circumstances, we may be compelled to provide personal information about you to law enforcement agencies, emergency service agencies and other organisations engaged in the planning and provision of services to the community); or
- to resolve any disputes that we may have with any of our users and enforce our agreements with third parties.
Who we disclose personal information to
We may disclose personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy to:
- our employees and related bodies corporate;
- third party suppliers and service providers;
- professional advisers, dealers and agents;
- payment systems operators (for example, merchants receiving card payments);
- our existing or potential agents, business partners or partners;
- anyone to whom our assets or businesses (or any part of them) are transferred;
- third parties as set out in this privacy statement, including for example, authorised deposit-taking institutions, credit reporting bureaus, information brokers, electronic lodgement network operators or as authorised by you to receive information held by us; and/or
- other persons, including government agencies (for example, the Registrar General), regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies, or as required, authorised or permitted by law.
Information Brokers
NSW LRS has licensing agreements with information brokers which allow them to access and use some of the data collected by us. We also have licensing arrangements with third parties which acquire NSW LRS information products and services. Use of any personal information by these third parties is subject to certain use restrictions in the relevant licensing agreements.
Other disclosures
In particular circumstances, we may seek your consent to disclose information for other purposes not set out in this Privacy Policy. In some cases, if you do not consent to certain uses of your personal information, we may not be able to provide a particular NSW LRS product or service to you.
Disclosure of personal information outside of Australia
Given the public nature of the Registers we manage and the services we offer, we may disclose personal information outside of NSW and Australia where persons or entities who undertake searches of, or request information from, the Registers are located outside of NSW and Australia.
How we store and secure your personal information
We hold your personal information in either electronic or hard copy form.
NSW LRS takes reasonable steps to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, interference or unauthorised disclosure, modification or destruction. We use a number of physical, administrative, personnel and technical measures to protect your personal information.
Cookies
We may also use "cookies" or other similar tracking technologies on our website that help us track your website usage and remember your preferences. Cookies are small files which contain a unique ID number that store information on your computer, mobile phone or other device. Cookies enables us to recognise you when you return and greet you each time you visit our website with any relevant preferences. It also enables us to keep track of services you view or preferences you have so that, if you consent, we can send you news and targeted marketing / promotional materials in relation to those services. We may also use cookies to measure traffic patterns, to determine which areas of our website have been visited and to measure transaction patterns in the aggregate. We use this to research our users’ habits so that we can improve our services. If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set your browser so that your computer does not accept them.
We also log the internet protocol address of the machine accessing our website to analyse trends, administer the website, track users movements and gather broad demographic information.
Links
Our website may contain links to websites operated by third parties. Those links are provided for convenience and may not remain current or be maintained. Unless expressly stated otherwise, we are not responsible for the privacy practices of, or any content on, those linked websites, and have no control over or rights in those linked websites. The privacy policies that apply to those other websites may differ substantially from our Privacy Policy and we encourage individuals to read them before using those websites.
Access to your personal information
You can request access to the personal information we hold about you at any time by submitting a request in writing using the contact details below. You can expect us to respond in a reasonable time (usually within 30 days of receipt of your request).
Sometimes, we may not be able to provide you with access to all of your personal information and, where this is the case, we will tell you why. We may need you to verify your identity when you request your personal information.
We may charge you a fee for providing your personal information to you. This fee may include our reasonable costs incurred in providing you with the information. Separate charges may apply where you have requested us to provide you with a NSW LRS product or service or where otherwise permitted by law in relation to an information request.
Correction of your personal information
NSW LRS takes reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information that we collect, use and disclose is accurate, complete and up-to-date.
If you find that the personal information that we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out-of-date, please contact us immediately and we will take reasonable steps to ensure it is corrected. If we does not agree with your view about the accuracy of the information and if you ask us to do so, we will take reasonable steps to note your claim where that information is stored and accessed.
Where you identify that the personal information we hold on the Registers is inaccurate, there may be a fee associated with amendment of that personal information (for example if the inaccurate information was included in the relevant dealing, document or form lodged with NSW LRS). See the RG Guidelines Procedures (available here) for information on amendment processes for the Registers.
Office of the Registrar General
The Office of the Registrar General (ORG) oversees the operations of NSW LRS.
Except where it would be unlawful to do so, NSW LRS must comply with all requests or directions of the ORG concerning the suppression of personal information. NSW LRS must notify the ORG promptly upon becoming aware of any breach of its obligations under the privacy legislation.
Suppression of personal information
NSW LRS may suppress personal information from its public registers in response to a direction from the ORG, following a request from a member of the public advising that their well-being or safety is at risk because the register may disclose their whereabouts. Requests for the suppression of personal information from public registers should be submitted in writing and forwarded to the Information and Privacy Coordinator at the Office of the Registrar General. This can be done either via email at org.privacy@customerservice.nsw.gov.au or through postage to the Office of the Registrar General, McKell Building, 2-24 Rawson Place, SYDNEY NSW 2000.
Making a privacy complaint
Internal review – NSW LRS functions
If you believe that NSW LRS has breached one or more of its privacy obligations in the performance of its functions (e.g. in maintaining one of the public registers), you can apply for an internal review of NSW LRS’ conduct. NSW LRS will carry out an internal review of how it handled your personal information In accordance with Part 5 of the PPIP Act.
If you are not satisfied with the result of the internal review or with how NSW LRS handled the internal review, you can seek a further review from the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal.
Lodging a complaint with the Australian Information Commissioner – personal information
If you think we have breached the Privacy Act, or you wish to make a complaint about the way we have handled your personal information, you can contact us using the contact details set out below. Please include your name, email address and/or telephone number and clearly describe your complaint. We will acknowledge your complaint and respond to you regarding your complaint within a reasonable period of time (usually within 30 days of receipt of your complaint).
If you think that we have failed to resolve the complaint satisfactorily, you may then lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
Further information on lodging a privacy complaint with the OAIC can be found at www.oaic.gov.au.
Further information on privacy
If you would like more information about NSW LRS’ Privacy Policy, please contact the NSW LRS Privacy Coordinator by mail addressed to:
The Privacy Coordinator
NSW Land Registry Services
Legal and Dispute Resolution
GPO Box 15
SYDNEY NSW 2001
Alternatively, you can contact the NSW LRS Customer Service Centre.
Further information on privacy can be obtained at www.nswlrs.com.au
Effective: March 2023