From: "privacy" <pprivacy@bigpond.net.au>
To: <privacy_nsw@agd.nsw.gov.au>
Subject: Missing publications from the Privacy NSW website
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:17:59 +0800

ATT: John Dickie, Acting Privacy Commissioner, Privacy NSW
 
Dear Mr Dickie,
 
It has come to the attention of the Australian Privacy Foundation that a number of publications by Privacy NSW are no longer listed on or linked from the publications section of the Privacy NSW website.
 
These include:
 
* Position Paper on the HRIP Bill (from approx 2002 - was referred to in Parliamentary debates on the then Bill)
 
* Position Paper on naming child offenders (dating from around 2002 or 2003?)
 
* Publication # AD09-2002-01 (as listed on the Publications Order Form) User Manual: A guide to the Workplace Video Surveillance Act 1998 (NSW)
 
* Publication # AD09-2004-01 (as listed on the Publications Order Form) User Manual: The tape recording of council meetings
 
The Australian Privacy Foundation would appreciate it if you would restore these and any other deleted documents to the list of Publications on the
website, and we look forward to your advice about this. These are important historical records of advice provided by the Office, even if that advice is now considered superseded or obsolete for whatever reason. It appears to us that there is an obligation on an agency to retain ready access to old publications in order to ensure compliance with the State Records Act and the FOI Act, in terms of keeping full and accurate records, and ensuring the transparency and accessibility of policy documents
 
We also suggest that the guide to the newer Workplace Surveillance Act produced by the Legislation & Policy Division of the AG's Department ought not be listed here under "User Manuals" as if it were a Privacy NSW publication, as this could cause some confusion about authorship of that advice.
 
We have also noted your site's recent advice for Mac users:
 
"Please note Mac OS X and Safari users: For Mac OS X, the default browser is Safari. If you experience problems accessing forms and documents on Lawlink
websites using Safari as your Web browser, you may need to use an alternative browser, for example Internet Explorer (IE) or Firefox."
 
While we appreciate that the problem here lies with all Lawlink sites rather than the Privacy NSW site per se, could you please pass on to the relevant
people within the Attorney General's Department the fact that we are aware of complaints from users about this significant site accessibility defect.
In particular we have been advised by Mac users that one alternative browser you recommend, Internet Explorer, is no longer supported on Macs, on the
grounds that Mac users can use Safari!  The other suggestion Firefox is, although good, still relatively new and experimental. 
 
Could you please pass on the view that using proprietary web hosting technologies which do not work in modern mainstream web-standards-compliant browsers (such as Safari) is evidence of testing, specification and design failure by Lawlink.
 
Thanks and regards,
 
Lindy Smith
Secretary, Australian Privacy Foundation

W: <>www.privacy.org.au