The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has released the results of a ‘privacy sweep’ of 47 websites and mobile apps most used by Australians.

Website privacy policies were assessed for accessibility, readability and content. The websites were also assessed against new transparency requirements in the Privacy Act that will come into effect on 12 March 2014.

Some key trends observed by the OAIC included:

• 15% had a privacy policy that was hard to find on the website
• 9% of sites reviewed either listed no privacy contact or it was difficult to find contact information for a privacy officer
• Almost 50% of policies raised ‘readability’ issues, ie they were considered to be too long and difficult to read. The average reading age of the policies was 16. None of the full privacy policies met the OAIC’s preferred reading age level of 14.
• More than 65% of privacy policies raised concerns with respect to the relevance of the information provided.

To comply with new Australian Privacy Principle 1 from 12 March 2014, organisations must have a clearly expressed and up to date privacy policy.