Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Feedback Collection Notice

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is seeking insights from its users to understand how they use and access the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) including seeking feedback on proposed changes to design criteria for Urban Centres and Localities geography.

The feedback survey is open between 29 May 2024 and 1 September 2024. The ABS will use the outcomes of this feedback survey to inform ABS decisions on the design and creation of ASGS Edition 4.

This Collection Notice explains the collection and use of personal information as part of the feedback survey through the ABS Consultation Hub.

Your personal information is being collected by the ABS and ABS’s technology service provider for the feedback survey. A third party contracted service provider, Delib, provides the third party platform used by the ABS which is known as Citizen Space. 

The ABS Privacy Policy for Managing and Operating Our Business provides details about how the ABS manages your personal information. 

As part of making a submission, you will be required to provide your personal information to the ABS through our Consultation Hub. 

The Privacy Notice for the Consultation Hub explains how the ABS use Delib and Citizen Space. The ABS manage the website and Delib provides the technology behind this service and its operation. The ABS is the data controller and Delib is the data processor. Delib’s Privacy Notice explains how Delib will collect, safeguard, and process your data on behalf of the ABS.

As part of a submission to this feedback survey, the ABS will collect and manage the following information:

• Contact name
• Contact email address (Optional if follow up contact from ABS requested)
• Category that best describes the organisation you represent (Optional)
• Responses to feedback survey questions 

The ABS will use the responses to your feedback survey to inform the ABS in decisions on the design and creation of ASGS Edition 4.

Your feedback survey submission will not be published. The ABS may publish a summary of findings based on feedback received on the ABS Consultation Hub however these will not contain any details to identify a submitter. 

Consent for further contact from the ABS may be selected by you in the feedback survey. If you consent to being contacted after the feedback survey by the ABS for follow up or to receive email updates on the outcome of this survey, the ABS will use your name and email address to contact you. 

The ABS complies with the Privacy Act 1988 the Archives Act 1983 in the storage, collection, access, use, disclosure, retention and destruction of your personal information. When personal information is collected as part of this ASGS Edition 4 feedback survey, it is stored in secure data centres in Australia. The hosting provider for Delib is Amazon Web Services (AWS) and meets all Australian Government privacy and data storage requirements.

The ABS will extract a copy of your feedback survey from the Consultation Hub to be used for the business purpose stated above. Authorised ABS staff will access and remove your contact details (name, email address and any other identifying information) from the feedback survey at the end of the project (30 June 2025) and then store a de-identified version of your feedback survey in the secure ABS environment to use for the project and for record keeping purposes.

Your feedback survey will be deleted from Delib data stores by June 2025.

The ABS Privacy Policy for Managing and Operating Our Business provides further information about how the ABS manage and protect your personal information stored in ABS systems.

As the technology service provider, Delib will only access your personal information when requested to do so by the ABS and only for the purposes of assisting with the administration of the site.

Except for Delib, in their data processing role, the ABS will not:

• share information in a way that would identify you or your organisation(s) without your consent
• share information with private organisations, such as direct marketing companies
• share information with other government agencies for compliance or regulation activities.

Unless required or authorised by Australian law.

If you have identified you have provided a submission on behalf of an organisation, the ABS may share the information in your submission to an alternative contact within your organisation if there is a legitimate reason to do so.

The ABS Privacy Policy for Managing and Operating Our Business provides more information about how the ABS handle your personal information.

A feedback survey cannot be edited in the Consultation Hub once it has been submitted. If the feedback survey is still open, you can provide a new submission. 

Please contact geography@abs.gov.au

• to request removal of your original submission 
• if you need to access or correct your personal information
• to revoke your consent to receive follow up emails from the ABS

The ABS Privacy Policy for Managing and Operating Our Business has information about how you can make a complaint if you feel the ABS have not adequately protected your privacy. The Policy describes how the ABS will respond to your complaint, and what you can do if you are not satisfied with our response.

You can contact the ABS Privacy Officer (details below) who will respond to enquiries or assist with complaints.

By email: privacy@abs.gov.au

By post: ABS Privacy Officer
Australian Bureau of Statistics
Locked Bag 10, Belconnen ACT 2617