Requesting Personal Information

The Energy and Water Ombudsman (SA) (“the Company”) is a company limited by guarantee registered under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).

Individuals have certain rights under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act”) to access personal information about them which is held by the Company. The Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs”) under the Privacy Act prescribe individuals' access rights to information. Individuals also have certain rights to request corrections to any personal information that the Company holds about them if it is considered inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading.

Please note that freedom of information (“FOI”) legislation does not apply to private businesses or non-Government organisations such as the Company. As a consequence, you do not have rights under FOI legislation to request access to information of an individual (whether or not about you) which is held by the Company.

We will not charge you a fee for making an application to access information. If, however, the Company incurs expenses for providing access to your personal information (including as a result of searching for, locating and retrieving the requested personal information, assessing which personal information to provide, reproducing and sending the personal information), then we may charge you a reasonable fee for processing your request. We will advise you of these charges before proceeding and may require you to pay these charges upfront (before providing access).

Under the Privacy Act:

• An individual's access request under APP 12 or APP 13 can only relate to personal information about that individual. Please refer to the Company's Privacy Policy for further information on what comprises personal information.
• We are required to respond to an access request within a reasonable time period (i.e. by either providing access or refusing access). We aim to respond to all access requests within 30 days of when the request is made.
• We will endeavour to provide access to information in the manner requested by you. However, privacy access requests can be answered in different ways. That is, we may provide a verbal explanation of a decision or action, provide a hard or soft copy of the requested information, provide a summary of the requested information, provide a redacted version of the requested information, or allow you to view our records in person.
• The Company has a right to deny access in certain prescribed circumstances. If we refuse access, we will give you reasons for our refusal.
• There is no right to review a decision refusing access to personal information on merit, or a decision declining to give access in the manner requested by you. If you have any privacy queries or concerns , please contact our Privacy Officer in the first instance by phone on 1800 665 565 or by email at privacy@ewosa.com.au

You may make a request under the Privacy Act to access or correct your personal information by using our Request for Access to Personal Information form, by emailing privacy@ewosa.com.au or by writing to:

The Privacy Officer

Energy and Water Ombudsman (SA) Limited 

GPO Box 2947 Adelaide, SA 5001

We encourage use of the Request for Access to Personal Information form so that we obtain a clear understanding of the nature of the request, the types and extent of information requested, and so that we can more accurately assess any likely fees or charges for processing the request.

It is important that we have your correct details, such as your current address and telephone number. You can check or update your information by contacting us using the details set out in our Privacy Policy.

You may request that we correct any inaccurate information we hold, or have provided to others, by using the Request for Access to Personal Information form or by using the details set out in our Privacy Policy. If the information that is corrected is information we have previously provided to others, you may ask us to notify them of the correction.

If we are satisfied that any personal information we hold about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date, we will amend our records accordingly and inform you when the process is complete. If we disagree with you that information should be corrected, we will give you our reasons for our refusal. You may then ask us to include a statement with the relevant information, indicating your view that the information is inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, irrelevant or out-of-date. We will take reasonable steps to comply with such a request.

In cases where a request relates to documents that contain your personal information, we will need to verify your identity before completing your request.

If another person has authorised you to make a request on their behalf, we need to verify both your identity and that of the person who has authorised you to make the request.

Acceptable identity documents include: a passport, an Australian driver’s licence or any other official identification in the English language which contains your photo, signature and address. Copies of identification documents should be certified as true copies of the originals by a person with the power to witness a Commonwealth statutory declaration.

If a person is making a request on behalf of another, we require a signed letter of authorisation specifically authorising the Company to either send documents to that person or allow that person to inspect the documents containing the other person's personal information.

For a copy the Request for Access to Personal Information Form, please click here.