Managing complaints about SafeWork NSW - privacy collection notice

On this page

1. Who we are
2. Why are we collect your personal information
3. The kinds of personal information we collect
4. Whether you are required by law to provide us with this information
5. How we may use this information
6. Who we may share your information with
7. Protecting your information
8. Your rights
9. Contact us

1. Who we are

Your information is being collected by the SafeWork NSW Agency (SafeWork NSW), the NSW Work Health and Safety Regulator. SafeWork NSW is the primary 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 is responsible for engaging with the NSW community to prevent work-related fatalities, serious injuries, and illnesses and securing compliance with work health and safety laws. On 1 July 2025, it was formally established as a stand-alone regulator under the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Standalone Regulator) Act 2025.

2. Why we collect your personal information

We collect your personal information for the purposes of receiving, assessing, investigating, managing and responding to complaints and feedback about SafeWork NSW’s services and operations. We also collect information to assess and manage the risks to the health, safety and wellbeing of our staff and contractors.

3. The kinds of personal information we collect

We may collect the following personal information:

• Your full name and contact details (phone number, email and address)
• Details about your complaint, including any supporting information you provide to us such as emails, videos, photos or audio recordings.
• Your communications with us about how the complaint issues may have personally impacted you.
• Third-party details, including details about the individual who the complaint is about or other involved parties.
• The contact details of your support person, should you wish for a support person or representative to communicate with us on your behalf.
• Any information you send to us during, or following the closure of your complaint.

4. Whether you are required by law to provide us with this information

Your information is provided voluntarily however if you choose not to provide your information, we may be unable to act on your complaint.

5. How we may use this information

We may use the information we collect in the following ways to:

• Investigate and respond to your complaint about SafeWork NSW.
• Attempt to resolve your matter, which may include providing your personal information to another government agency if appropriate.
• Respond to inquiries from oversight agencies, such as the NSW Ombudsman and the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
• Improve SafeWork NSW’s services and operations.
• Internal administrative purposes, including liaising with you in relation to the complaint. We may also send you a survey after your complaint is closed, inviting you to provide feedback on our services or operations.
• Support more informed policy making, program management, evaluation, research, and service planning as it can facilitate more efficient service delivery for residents and businesses in NSW.
• Assess and manage risks to the health, safety and wellbeing of our staff and contractors.
• Investigate allegations, incidents or inappropriate conduct.
• Manage interactions and communications with you.
• Develop and implement communication arrangements with you, including the nomination of a single point of contract, or restrictions on communication channels where reasonably necessary to protect our staff safety, operational integrity or service delivery. The information will be managed in accordance with our Managing Disruptive Behaviour in Complaints Procedure.
• Comply with legal obligations; and
• Support the agency’s security, governance, risk management and complaint-handling.

6. Who we may share your information with

On 1 July 2025, SafeWork NSW was established as an Executive Agency related to the Department of Customer Service (DCS). DCS provide some corporate service functions to SafeWork NSW under formal agreement and assist us with our business operations by providing software and storing data on our behalf. Further information on how DCS manage personal information.

Your personal information may be disclosed to the individuals or entities who are the subject of your complaint.

If required, we may make enquiries and exchange information with other NSW Government agencies (including the NSW Police Force, NSW Ombudsman, Independent Commission Against Corruption), Local Councils, or other States, Territories and/or the Commonwealth. We may disclose your information to such bodies for these purposes.

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. For further information, please see our privacy statement.

7. Protecting your information

We will store and manage your information in accordance with the provisions of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (PPIP Act) and Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (HRIP Act).. We have measures in place to help protect your personal information from loss, unauthorised access, use, modification, disclosure, or other misuse.

We will only keep information for as long as we need it to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. After which, the information will be disposed of securely in accordance with the State Records Act 1998 and any other applicable legislation.

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

8. Your rights

Subject to certain conditions, you have the right to access or correct your personal and/or health information. If you wish to invoke any of the above rights, please contact us on 13 10 50.

9. Contact us

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

SafeWork NSW
92-100 Donnison St
Gosford 2250 NSW