Agency Plan

This page shows how eSafety complies with the requirements of the Information Publication Scheme under the Freedom of Information Act. It constitutes eSafety's Agency Plan.

The Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) gives individuals a legally enforceable right of access to government documents, subject to specific exemptions. 

The FOI Act includes an Information Publication Scheme (IPS), which is intended to promote the proactive disclosure of public sector information across government.

The eSafety Commissioner and staff assisting her (eSafety) constitutes an agency for the purposes of the FOI Act.

This Agency Plan outlines how eSafety will comply with the requirements of the IPS and meet the FOI Act’s objectives of transparency, accountability and public engagement.

The eSafety Commissioner

The eSafety Commissioner is responsible for promoting online safety for all Australians. The Commissioner's regulatory functions and activities include handling complaints and reports under the Enhancing Online Safety for Act 2015 and the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. We also provide online safety education for children and young people, and publish a range of online safety information and advice, including for parents, seniors and women experiencing technology-facilitated abuse. 

Purpose

The purpose of this plan is to outline:

• what information eSafety proposes to publish for the purposes of the IPS
• how, and to whom, we propose to publish IPS information
• how we otherwise propose to comply with the IPS.

Objectives

Our objective in publishing this plan is to outline appropriate mechanisms and procedures to:

• manage our IPS entry
• proactively identify and publish all information required to be published
• proactively identify and publish any other information to be published
• regularly review information published as part of our IPS entry to ensure it is accurate, up to date and complete
• ensure that information published as part of our IPS entry is easily discoverable, understandable, machine-readable, re-useable and transformable
• ensure satisfactory conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
• measure the success of our IPS contribution by reference to any feedback and compliance review processes
• adopt best practice initiatives in implementing and administering our IPS entry.

Establishing and administering eSafety’s IPS entry

eSafety’s FOI functions are coordinated through our Legal and Policy Team. Legal and Policy is responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of eSafety’s FOI arrangements, including establishing and assisting with the administration of the IPS.

The Section Manager of Legal and Policy is the designated senior officer responsible for leading eSafety's compliance with the IPS.

A Senior Policy Officer within Legal and Policy is the designated officer responsible for handling access to document requests.

As part of managing the ongoing administration of eSafety’s IPS information holdings, eSafety will be proactive in developing a range of documents and tools to ensure our compliance with the IPS.

IPS information obligations and architecture

We are required to publish certain types of information under the IPS.

Our IPS entry will be published on the freedom of information page of this website, with links to the following sections:

• IPS agency plan (this page), which outlines how eSafety will implement the IPS requirements.
• Who we are, including our structure, information about the eSafety Commissioner and our legislative functions; for statutory appointees, we will publish the name of the person appointed, the length or term of appointment, the position to which the person is appointed (and particulars of the position) and the provision of the Act under which the person is appointed.
• What we do, including links to operational information relating to our functions and activities.
• Annual reports.
• Accountability reporting, including files created and executive remuneration.
• FOI disclosure log, listing the information we’ve released in response to Freedom of Information access requests, subject to exceptions
• Public consultation, providing details of any consultation processes open for contribution, as well as how you may engage with us as part of our regulatory functions.
• Freedom of Information, outlining the process for making a request under the FOI Act and how we’ll handle your request; also clarifying that the eSafety Commissioner’s work in relation to offensive or illegal content under Schedule 5 and 7 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 is a specific exemption in the FOI Act.
• Contact us, including the telephone number and an email address for a contact officer who can be contacted about access to eSafety’s information or documents under the FOI Act.

Consistent with the objects of the FOI Act, we also seek to publish information in addition to what is required under the FOI Act.

Making our information accessible

To ensure our IPS information is easily searchable, discoverable and easy to understand, we will:

• have a link to our freedom of information page in the footer of all pages on our website
• create and publish information relating to our IPS entry on this website
• wherever possible, provide online content in a format that can be searched, copied and transformed
• publish a sitemap for our website to help individuals identify the location of information published
• provide a search function for our website
• establish links on this website to our agency publication plan
• ensure our information conforms with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
• seek and respond to community feedback about whether the IPS information is easily searchable, discoverable and understandable.

IPS compliance review

We will review our agency plan at least annually, in the context of our overall strategic planning process, and update it if necessary.

We will review the operation of our IPS entry at least every five years, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner.

We will also review our IPS entry if any significant changes occur to our functions or activities.

We will consider how we can engage with the public on this compliance review process.