OVIC Annual FOI Survey – Notice of collection
Each year, OVIC conducts an online survey to collect information and data from each Victorian agency and Minister on the administration and operation of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic) (the FOI Act).
This survey is undertaken to help fulfill the Information Commissioner’s annual reporting requirements as set out in section 64 of the FOI Act. Collated information from survey responses is then reported to Parliament via OVIC’s annual report.
Under section 64B of the FOI Act, agencies and Ministers must provide information to OVIC to assist with this annual reporting.
The 2025-26 survey will be sent to agencies and Ministers on 1 July 2026 with responses due by 5:00pm on 17 July 2026.
What type of personal information is collected?
The personal information collected includes the name, position title and contact information of the officer completing the survey, the names of FOI decision makers and the name, position title and contact information for the relevant Principal officer and general contact information for the relevant agency or Minister.
The survey contains free text fields. Except for where the above referenced personal information is requested, survey respondents are asked to NOT enter any other personal information into the free text fields.
How will this information be used or managed?
We will use the information provided in the survey to fulfill our reporting functions under section 64 of the FOI Act.
A secondary purpose of the contact information provided will be to update our internal databases as required, to ensure the currency of our contact lists and make sure we are contacting the right people when providing our services.
Any personal information provided will be handled in line with our Privacy Policy. Individuals can request access to any personal information we hold about them obtained from this survey by contacting us at foiannualreport@ovic.vic.gov.au.
Will information from the survey be provided to third parties?
OVIC works with a third party contractor to conduct the survey. The third party is required to follow the Information Privacy Principles in the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) when handling personal information. Once completed, the full information you provide in the survey will only be accessible by OVIC staff and our third party facilitating the information collection.
In line with OVIC’s legislative requirements, certain information provided through the survey will ultimately be reported in OVIC’s annual report, which is a publicly available document. This information does include personal information, being the names of FOI decision makers.
What do I need to do?
Agencies completing this survey should provide a copy of OVIC’s collection notice to all persons whose personal information is contained in the agency’s survey response (such as FOI decision makers), prior to the agency submitting its response.
When completing the survey, please do not enter any personal information into the free text fields.
If you have any questions about this notice of collection, please contact us via foiannualreport@ovic.vic.gov.au or 1300 00 6842.
