OVIC’s 2019-20 annual report published

OVIC’s 2019-20 annual report was tabled in the Victorian Parliament on Thursday 29 October 2020.

In 2020, the spread of COVID-19 fundamentally transformed the way individuals live and work all around the world.

Many Victorian public sector (VPS) organisations faced significant and unprecedented changes to their operations. OVIC provided support across the VPS on freedom of information (FOI), privacy and information security to guide agencies through this change.

In 2019-20, OVIC made major improvements in the timeliness of completing FOI reviews and complaints and finalised a record number of FOI complaints.

As public interest in privacy grew, we received more privacy complaints and published new guidance on privacy rights for members of the public.

OVIC also published updated Guidelines to the Information Privacy Principles for the first time since 2011, an e-book on artificial intelligence, and updated versions of the Victorian Protective Data Security Standards and Victorian Protective Data Security Framework.

In 2019-20, we conducted an annual stakeholder engagement survey for the first time, reaffirming our commitment to effective engagement across the VPS. We also conducted user research to improve the user experience of our website and held face-to-face training, events and forums that were attended by more than 5,500 stakeholders.

Read OVIC’s 2019-20 annual report.