Privacy Privacy collection notices Professional engineer and/or design practitoner registration - privacy collection notice

Professional engineer and/or design practitoner registration - privacy collection notice

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How we handle your personal information when you apply to register as or renew a registration for a professional engineer, design practitioner and/or principal design practitioner. This also includes how we handle your personal information when you apply for mutual recognition as a professional engineer.

On this page

Who we are

Your information is being collected by the Department of Customer Service (the Department) on behalf of the Commissioner for NSW Fair Trading. NSW Fair Trading gives priority to protecting the privacy of your personal information, in accordance with the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 and the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002.

If you have any questions about this document, or how we handle your personal information, you can contact our Privacy team using the contact details at the end of this Notice.

Why we collect your personal information

NSW Fair Trading is collecting your personal information for the purpose of assessing your application for registration as or renewal of a professional engineer, design practitioner and/or principal design practitioner under the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 and the Design and the Building Practitioners Regulation 2021.

The kinds of information we collect

We may collect the following information:

  • Your full name, date of birth, and contact details (email and phone number) and any previous names or aliases
  • Proof of identity information, which may include your photo identity documents, like a passport or driver licence, your Medicare card details and/or other proof of identity
  • Qualification details
  • Experience relating to the class you are applying for (including project addresses, licensed building or principal contractor responsible for the project and employer or contractor who engaged you for the project) and referee contact details
  • National Police Checks
  • Criminal offences recorded in the last ten years, disciplinary actions against you and any disqualifications, cancellations or suspensions of licences or registrations relating to the relevant design and/or building work
  • Details of mental incapacity, where applicable*
  • Some financial information, including information about bankruptcy
  • Details relating to your existing registration of a professional engineering class from another Australian state or territory or New Zealand
  • Additional personal information if it is required to satisfy the eligibility requirements for the registration.

* This information is ‘health information’ and attracts a higher level of protection under the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002. We note as part of the application process, if you select yes to being a “mentally incapacitated person”, you will not be able to complete your application.

Failure to provide information

Your information is provided voluntarily however if you choose not to provide your information, we may be unable to process your application.

How we may use this information

We may use the information we collect in the following ways:

  • To assess your application for registration as or renewal of a professional engineer, design practitioner and/or principal design practitioner registration in accordance with Part 5 of the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 and Part 4 and Schedule 2 of the Design and Building Practitioners Regulation 2021.
  • To assess your application for mutual recognition as a professional engineer in accordance with Part 5 of the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020, Part 5 of the Design and Building Practitioners Regulation 2021, the Mutual Recognition (New South Wales) Act 1992 and the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition (New South Wales) Act 1996.
  • Internal administrative purposes, including liaising with you in relation to your application, and in relation to compliance, investigations, and enforcement of the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 or Fair Trading Act 1987.
  • To administer and update your registration, including to send you information that we consider important such as reminders to renew registrations, to update you on any changes to the scheme and to confirm your details if you make any subsequent applications in relation to any registration or authority issued by the Department on behalf of the Commissioner for Fair Trading.
  • To support more informed policy making, program management, evaluation, research and service planning as it can facilitate more efficient service delivery for residents and business in NSW.
  • To record information on a public register which is published online (as required by section 98 of the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 and clause 89 of the Design and Building Practitioners Regulation 2021). This will include the following:
    • details of the registration, including details such as your name, place of business address, registration number, class and current status, date which you were first registered and date which the registration is due to expire
    • the results of a relevant disciplinary determination
    • the results of prosecutions under the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020
    • details of penalty notices issued
    • details of warning notices published
    • details of any conditions on the registration
    • details of any cancellation or suspension of the registration.
  • Other directly related purposes.

Who we may share your information with

If required, we may make enquiries and exchange information with other NSW Government agencies, or other States, Territories and/or the Commonwealth for the purposes of assessing your application and for compliance purposes. We may disclose your information with such bodies for these purposes.

We will not disclose your information to anybody else, except where you have given consent, or where we are authorised or permitted to do so by law. Our Privacy Statement describes when this may occur.

Service NSW

Service NSW provides a digital front door, and your MyServiceNSW Account will be used to initiate this application and verify your identity. Service NSW collects and uses your personal information to:

  • Initiate the application using your MyServiceNSW Account details.
  • Verify your identity with the Document Verification Service.
  • Share details from your MyServiceNSW Account with NSW Fair Trading.

Service NSW also maintains and uses your personal information for internal administrative purposes, including for the purposes of our interactions with you.

Other information you provide through the application to demonstrate your eligibility for a licence or certificate will be collected and stored by NSW Fair Trading only.

For more information about how Service NSW handles personal information, please visit the Service NSW Privacy Statement.

Digital NSW

We are partnered with Digital NSW (part of the Department of Customer Service) who assist us with our business operations by providing software and storing data on our behalf. Digital.NSW have a Privacy Statement which outlines how they look after this data.

Protecting your information

We will store and manage your information in accordance with the provisions of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 and the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002. We have measures in place to help protect your personal information from loss, unauthorised access, use, modification, disclosure, or other misuse.

We will only keep information for as long as we need it to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. After which, the information will be disposed of securely in accordance with the State Records Act 1998 and any other applicable legislation.

See our Privacy Management Plan for more information about how we handle your personal information.

Your rights

Subject to certain conditions, you have the following rights in relation to your personal information:

  • The right to request access to your personal information
  • The right to request correction of your personal information.

If you wish to invoke any of the above rights, please contact us using the details below.

Contact us

If you would like to make a privacy enquiry or complaint, you can contact us on (02) 9219 3999 or at [email protected].