Calls and emails to, and from, our Advisory Services team – privacy collection notice

SafeWork NSW is the work health and safety regulator in New South Wales. It operates under the legislative mandate of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (WHS Act) and has functions that include providing advice and information on WHS to duty holders under the WHS Act and to the community, and to monitor and enforce compliance with the WHS Act. On 1 July 2025, it was formally established as an independent regulator under the WHS Act.

SafeWork NSW gives priority to protecting the privacy of personal, health and other information you give us in accordance with the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (PPIP Act), Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (HRIPAct) and the WHS Act and to support it in carrying out its functions.

Why we collect the information

Throughout calls and in email correspondence, you may give us and we may ask for personal, health and other information so we can:

  • provide our services
  • respond to your enquiries, and
  • assess and appropriately respond to work health and safety issue(s)

in accordance with SafeWork NSW’s role to administer the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and related legislation.

Your choices to provide information

Generally, providing your and others’ personal and health information is voluntary and you can choose how much information you give us but limiting what you tell us may limit SafeWork NSW's services and the guidance we can provide. We assume you have permission to provide others’ information where that would be expected.

The exception to providing information voluntarily is when a person conducting a business or undertaking (a PCBU), such as an employer or site manager, calls 13 10 50 to make a mandatory incident notification about a workplace serious injury or illness, a dangerous incident or a workplace fatality. In those cases, health and safety law requires the PCBU gives certain information to SafeWork NSW.

Information we collect

Telephone calls:

  • to our staff via 13 10 50 and 1800 Asbestos (1800 272 378), and
  • to you from our staff in the SafeWork Advisory Services team,

can be monitored and are voice and screen recorded by default. If you’d prefer that your call is not recorded, please let us know when the call is answered. Call voice and screen recordings are automatically deleted after a short period under our Call & Email Recording Policy, unless specific recordings are extracted and kept for longer periods for evidentiary purposes, in response to GIPA or privacy access requests or otherwise required or authorised by law.

Our staff may also make manual notes in our systems of information provided during calls.

Emails and any attached files:

are stored in our email systems and email contents and attachments may be copied into SafeWork NSW's other information systems.

The information we collect can include the following:

  • Name(s)
  • Address(es)
  • Email address(es)
  • Contact phone number(s)
  • Workplace location(s)
  • Business name(s) and contact details
  • Other worker or management name(s) and role(s)
  • Work health and safety issue(s) or enquiries being raised including dates of events
  • Work process and system-of-work details
  • Health, injury, treatment and treatment provider details
  • Reference numbers
  • Documents and images you provide us in support of the issues you raise
  • For mandatory incident notifications, also include: Details of injured parties
  • Opinions about the delivery and performance of our services and functions.

How we may use and disclose this information

SafeWork NSW will use and disclose the personal and health information you give us in calls and emails in the following ways.

  • Enquiry handling and service delivery: To respond to your enquiries; provide the services you request; assess, investigate and respond to work health and safety concerns reported and incident notifications (as applicable)
  • Stakeholder management: To manage, facilitate and track our engagements with you including to enable internal collaboration and coordination by teams across SafeWork NSW and by combining with information submitted to us via other channels or other engagements
  • Ministerial support: To provide information and support to Ministers including the Minister for Work Health and Safety
  • Referral to other regulators: To refer matters reported to SafeWork NSW to other appropriate regulators
  • Service quality and feedback: To manage the quality of our service delivery and to seek your feedback
  • Emergencies: To use your information in emergencies to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to life or health
  • Artificial intelligence technologies: To use artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to assist in processing, analysing, or responding to the information you provide. All use of AI is conducted in accordance with applicable privacy laws and data protection standards.
  • Corporate services and data handling: On 1 July 2025, SafeWork was established as an Executive Agency related to the Department of Customer Service (DCS). DCS continues to provide some corporate service functions to SafeWork under formal agreement and assist us with our business operations by providing software and storing data on our behalf. See: Information about how DCS manages personal information.
  • Other directly related purposes: For purposes directly related to the above or as otherwise required or authorised by law.
  • Use with your consent: If you consent to another use or disclosure
  • Other directly related purposes: For purposes directly related to the above or as otherwise required or authorised by law.

Where SafeWork NSW is permitted, authorised, or required to use or disclose information in accordance with legal requirements or a law of the State of NSW or the Commonwealth, measures will be taken to minimise the unnecessary disclosure of personal information.

We will not disclose your information to anybody else unless we are authorised or permitted to do so by law or where you have given consent. Our privacy statement describes when this may occur.

Protecting your information

The information you submit may be stored in our email systems and SafeWork NSW's other information systems.

We will store securely and manage your personal and health information in accordance with the provisions under the PPIP Act, HRIP Act and WHS Act. We keep your personal and health information on controlled systems, which are secured against unauthorised access.

Information will be kept for no longer than necessary for the purposes of which the information may lawfully be used. The information is disposed of securely, protected by taking reasonably necessary safeguards against any loss, unauthorised access, use, misuse, modification, or disclosure and against all other misuse of information.

See our privacy management plan for more information about how we handle your personal information.

Your rights

Subject to certain conditions, you have the right to access or request correction of inaccuracies in your personal and health information. If you wish to invoke any of the these rights, please contact us on 13 10 50.

Contact us

For further information contact us or call 13 10 50.

If you would like to make a privacy enquiry or complaint, you can contact us at privacy@safework.nsw.gov.au.

SafeWork NSW
94-100 Donnison St
Gosford 2250 NSW

ABN 90 181 234 165

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