EPA is committed to valuing and respecting the privacy of the people that it interacts with as well as protecting personal information collected in the course of performing its functions under the Environment Protection Act 2017 (EP Act), EP regulations or other legislation.

EPA are bound to comply with the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 and the Health Records Act 2001 (collectively, Victorian privacy law) whenever it collects and handles personal information, including sensitive and personal health information.

This privacy statement relates to privacy with respect to the EPA website and mobile phone apps (applications), and provides information about the following topics:

• EPA’s collection, use and disclosure of personal information collected via the EPA website, EPA mobile phone apps or EPA Portal
• secure transactions
• use of information collected via the EPA Portal (accessible from the EPA website) and the EPA apps

• cookies and gathering of statistics.

For further information about EPA and privacy, see EPA privacy policy.

Collection of personal and other information

The EPA website does not seek to collect or record personal information, other than information you choose to provide. EPA uses this information to respond to individuals and to provide information services as requested.

The EPA website collects anonymous information through web server logs. Information, such as the number, date and timing of visits to the website and pages of the website visited frequently, is collected for statistical purposes only to assist us to improve our service.

EPA does not attempt to identify individual users from these web server logs or associate a user’s IP address with other anonymous information. We will only record your email address for the purpose of replying to messages or requests made by you. Any other contact details you provide will only be retained where:

• we provide you with a response to a request
• you provide us with information as a part of a transaction with EPA
• you agree to be placed on our mailing list for bulletins, newsletters or other information.

Email addresses and any other contact details you provide will not be added to a mailing list without your consent. We do not use this information for direct marketing. Any personal information you provide will only be used for the purposes for which it is intended.

EPA collects information through the EPA mobile phone apps. Use of these apps may require the collection and handling of your personal information, including your username, password and contact email. See below, Privacy and the EPA Portal.

If you access another organisation’s website using a link from the EPA website, you will leave the EPA website and will be subject to the terms, conditions and circumstances of the site you visit, including the level of privacy protection offered on that site. The EPA privacy policy and protections will no longer apply once you leave this site.

Secure transactions

EPA has implemented technology and security policies, rules and measures to protect the personal information that we have under our control, including unauthorised access, improper use, alteration, unlawful or accidental destruction and accidental loss.

Users should be aware that there are inherent risks in transmitting information across the internet. It is technically possible for information transmitted over the internet to be observed by third parties.

To protect the sending of sensitive personal and business information to EPA we have implemented secure transaction technology (secure sockets layers) to encrypt transactions.

The transactions protected by encryption include:

• smoky vehicle reporting
• litter reporting
• pollution reporting
• enquiries to EPA.

Privacy and the EPA Portal

We work to protect your privacy when you use the EPA Portal. EPA information security and privacy policies aim to protect your information from being:

• seen by people who don’t have permission or a need to know
• used in the wrong way
• changed
• used in a way that is against the law 
• destroyed or lost accidentally.

To submit and maintain information through the Portal, you must have a registered, password-protected account. EPA confirms all requests for business accounts, to ensure that only users whose accounts are associated with an organisation can view its information.

When you first sign up to the Portal you will be prompted to set your password. We recommend you choose a password that is unique and not easy to guess. It should contain a combination of upper and lower-case letters, numbers and special characters. You must register an account to gain access to the EPA Portal

Please log out of the Portal after each session. The ‘Log off’ prompt is in the top right-hand corner of your screen.

Please review the Portal’s terms and conditions if you require further information.

Cookies and gathering of statistics

The EPA website uses ‘cookies’ (small data files that are sent to your computer). These cookies do not collect personal information. You can set your web browser to refuse cookies if you do not wish your computer to store them. If you opt out of using cookies, you will still have access to the EPA website but some features may not work as expected.

The following information, referred to as ‘click stream data’, is logged by our server:

• server address
• top-level domain name (for example, .com, .gov, .au, .uk, etc.)
• the date and time of visits to our website
• a visitor’s device and operating system
• a visitor’s approximate geographical location
• the pages accessed and documents downloaded
• the type of browser used by visitors
• the address of the referring web page.

A web beacon is a technology that records web page usage statistics. The EPA website currently uses a web beacon to gather data about use of this site.

Cookies, clickstream data and web beacons are used to gather statistical information, which is designed to assist in understanding what users find interesting and useful on this website.

This website uses Google Analytics website monitoring services to measure use of the website. Information about your use of the EPA website is available to Google. This may include personal information. Further information on how Google uses personal information obtained via Google Analytics is available in Google’s privacy policy.

Use of collected information

Personal information provided by you will not be used and/or disclosed for any purpose other than that of the transaction you have entered into (for example, subscribing to an EPA newsletter or making enquiries by email). This applies unless such a disclosure is required or authorised by Victorian privacy law or another law – for example, for law enforcement purposes or to reduce the threat of harm.

Access to information about you

People have a right to seek access to and correction of personal information that EPA holds about them. For information about accessing your personal information or any other privacy concerns, contact the EPA Privacy Officer:

Privacy Officer
EPA Victoria
GPO Box 4395
Melbourne Victoria 3001
Telephone: 1300 372 842
Email: privacyofficer@epa.vic.gov.au

There may be some circumstances where access to information cannot be granted as it may compromise the privacy of another individual or for other reasons set out in the Freedom of Information Act 1982.

For more information see the Freedom of information page.

Privacy information can also be found at the website of the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner or the Victorian Health Complaints Commissioner. 

Read next

EPA privacy policy

Freedom of information