Thank you for your email which has been received by the Office of the
Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

 

Please note:  December - January Agency closure period

The OAIC will be closed from 25 December 2025 to 1 January 2026 and will
reopen with limited staffing on 2 January 2026.

If you lodge an FOI request during December, we will process requests as
quickly as possible however, we may seek your agreement if additional time
for processing is required.

 

 

 

Notice:

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OAIC reference: FOIREQ25/00545

 

To Ada

 

I refer to your request (below), for access to documents made to the
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) under the Freedom
of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (FOI Act).

 

Scope of your request

 

Your FOI request was made in the following terms:

 

I request access to the following documents under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (Cth).

 

1. Templates and standard wording for privacy complaint close letters Any
documents that contain templates or standard wording used to generate OAIC
correspondence that closes or otherwise finalises a privacy complaint,
including template letters, model letters, clause libraries/paragraph
banks, standard text, and approved inserts.

This item is limited to correspondence that:

* closes a complaint at the intake/triage/preliminary assessment stage on
the basis that the OAIC will not open or proceed to an investigation

* declines to investigate, defers, or discontinues an investigation under
s 41 of the Privacy Act.

2. Operational guidance and decision support materials

2(a) Complaint assessment, triage and s 41 decision-making Any documents
used by OAIC staff to:

* assess privacy complaints for investigation (including triage, intake,
prioritisation, allocation, and preliminary assessment)

* make decisions to decline, defer, discontinue, or not investigate (or
not investigate further) under s 41 of the Privacy Act, including guidance
on applying individual grounds under s 41(1).

This includes any policies, procedures, work instructions, desk guides,
decision trees, checklists, training materials, internal guidance, and
standard text used for these purposes, and specifically includes documents
describing procedural fairness steps for s 41 decisions, including when a
notice of intention to consider declining (ITD) is required versus not
required (including any "immediate decline" pathway), any guidance on
issuing close letters without first issuing an ITD, and any requirements
to record/document reasons where an ITD is not issued.

2(b) APP 12 access complaints – interpretation of "personal information"

Any documents used by OAIC staff to determine whether information is
"personal information" for the purposes of APP 12 access complaints,
including any internal guidance on applying the “about an individual” and
“reasonably identifiable” concepts, and the treatment of inferred or
derived information.

3. Quality control, review, and correction processes Any documents
describing current quality assurance, peer review, supervisor clearance,
mandatory checks, or accuracy verification steps that apply to the issue
of privacy complaint close letters or other correspondence that finalises
a complaint (including any sampling or audit programs), including:

* whether any review or check is required before a close letter is sent
(and by whom)

* what the review or check covers (including factual accuracy,
dates/chronology, the APPs raised, scope statements, legislative
references, and reasoning).

Scope

I am aware of FOI release FOIREQ24/00182. To avoid duplication, I only
seek documents that are currently in use (or otherwise current as at the
date of processing). This request is intended to capture (i) material not
covered by FOIREQ24/00182, and (ii) any updated or superseding versions of
relevant materials that may have been released previously.

I am seeking approved and finalised documents only. I do not seek draft
documents, working papers, or documents that have not yet been approved
for operational use.

If any documents within scope of this request were previously released
under FOIREQ24/00182 and remain current, please identify them in the
schedule of documents and indicate that access is available via the
earlier release rather than providing them again.

 

Timeframes for dealing with your request

Your FOI request was received by the OAIC on 19 December 2025,  the
legislated timeframe for a decision on your FOI request falls on 19
January 2026.

 

Seeking your agreement to a time extension

The OAIC will be closed from 25 December 2025 to 1 January 2026 and will
reopen with limited staffing on 2 January 2026. As this shutdown may
impact our ability to meet the due date and finalise your decision, we
wish to seek your agreement to an extension of time of 30 days.

 

Please let us know as soon as possible by return email if you agree to the
extension, which would bring the due date to 18 February 2026.

If you do not agree to a 30-day time extension, please advise in writing
if you would agree to a shorter timeframe.

 

The processing time may also be extended if we need to consult with third
parties and we will advise you if this happens.  

 

In order to process your request more quickly, we will remove from any
document bundle we provide, duplicate material, unless context requires
otherwise.

 

Please advise us

 

To further assist a faster decision, can you please advise whether we can
remove as irrelevant, OAIC staff names under SES level (the OAIC does not
remove roles or the position titles), mobile telephone numbers and direct
internal contact details.

 

Disclosure Log

Documents released under the FOI Act may be published online on our
disclosure log, unless they contain personal or business information that
would be unreasonable to publish.

 

If you do not receive a decision within 30 days, or advice from us that
the statutory timeframe has been extended, you can apply to the
Information Commissioner for review of what is called a ‘deemed decision’.
For further information, see [1]Apply for an Information Commissioner
review | OAIC (or visit [2]www.oaic.gov.au).

 

If you have any queries, please contact us by email or provide a phone
number and advise a convenient time for us to call you.

 

Regards

 

[3][IMG]   FOI administration

Office of the Australian Information
Commissioner

E: [4][OAIC request email]  
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The OAIC acknowledges Traditional Custodians of Country across Australia
and their continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We pay
our respect to First Nations people, cultures and Elders past and present.

 

 

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