Terms of use 

Your use of the NSW Electoral Commission’s Funding and Disclosure Online portal for political participants (‘the portal’) is governed by the NSW Electoral Commission’s Website Privacy Statement, Disclaimer Statement, Copyright Statement and these Terms of use.

We will refer to the NSW Electoral Commission as 'we' or 'us' and the user (an individual who has created an online account) as ‘you’ in these Terms.

These Terms do not (and are not intended to) limit or conflict with our administrative or legislative functions.

Creating an online account

Only a natural person (not an entity) can request access to the portal and have an online account e.g. elected members, candidates, individuals who are third-party campaigners or major political donors and relevant staff/office holders of political parties, third-party campaigners, political donors and associated entities.

Your request to gain access to this portal will be assessed by us.

You are required to consent to us using the Document Verification Service (DVS) to assist us in verifying your identity.

The outcome of the DVS check does not guarantee your request for an online account will be refused or approved.

If you cannot or do not access and utilise this portal, you are required to use paper forms and manual processes.

If we approve your request, the features of the portal available to you will depend on the permissions attached to your role e.g. whether you are a party agent or elected member. The permissions are determined by legislation that sets out what you are responsible for.

By creating an online account you agree to the following Terms

You agree to us collecting, using and disclosing your personal information for lawful purposes

You agree that you have read and agreed to our Website Privacy Statement and Privacy Management Plan in addition to the Terms below.

What personal information do we collect?

We collect your personal information when you sign up to the portal and when you use the portal to submit forms and other records.

When you request access to the portal and we assess your request we will collect your personal information such as your name, address, contact details and date of birth.

To verify your identity we will ask you to provide identification numbers from your license or similar identification card or document and the name of the issuing state where relevant.

These details are provided to the DVS for the purpose of confirming that they match records held by the government authority that issued them.

The identification numbers and details are not retained by us. We will retain the response provided by the DVS, which is generally a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response with respect to the matching process. We will also retain the type of identification document you provide (e.g. ‘Driver Licence’) and your name provided by you.

When you use the portal we will be using cookies and keeping records of your visits to the portal. Please refer to our Website Privacy Statement for details.

When you submit applications, declarations, notifications or other records we will collect all of the information submitted in these forms.

Why do we collect your personal information?

We will use your personal information to:

• undertake our legislative and administrative functions under our governing legislation including electoral functions such as registration of participants for election events, receiving and processing disclosures; as well as conducting research, education, complaint handling, audit, investigative and prosecuting functions,
• make decisions with respect to your obligations and entitlements under the Electoral Funding Act 2018 (NSW) and the Electoral Act 2017 (NSW),
• publish information including personal information that we are lawfully authorised or required to publish as detailed in our Website Privacy Statement,
• verify your identity,
• manage your online account and portal access role,
• send you relevant notifications (including via sms or email),
• invite you to participate in relevant surveys or information seminars,
• educate and inform parties, elected members, candidates, groups, third-party campaigners, associated entities, party agents, official agents and donors of their obligations under the Electoral Funding Act and the Electoral Act, and
• maintain, secure and improve our websites and to enhance your experience when using them.

Who will access your personal information?

The public will have access to your personal information that we are required to publish on our websites or make available for public inspection at our office, such as:

• information and documents relating to the registers of parties kept for State and local government elections,
• the registers of candidates, associated entities, third-party campaigners, party agents, and official agents,
• disclosures of reportable political donations and electoral expenditure,
• copies of claims for payment of public funding under Part 4 of the Electoral Funding Act, and
• copies of claims for payment of public funding under Part 5 of the Electoral Funding Act,
• lists of senior office holders of registered parties.

Our Privacy Management Plan and Disclosure of Enrolment, Electoral and Election Information Policy provide further details about public registers.

With exception to information that is required to be published or made available for inspection, access to your personal information is restricted to a limited number of employees of the NSW Electoral Commission staff agency and our contracted service providers for the purposes identified above. We capture your personal information on our computers and those of our contracted service providers.

We will disclose your personal information to other persons or entities if we are lawfully authorised or required to, for example, to other relevant investigative agencies for law enforcement purposes.

Are you required to provide us the information we collect?

You are required to provide us the information we collect unless otherwise indicated.

The processing and approval of your online account may be delayed or rejected if you do not supply all of the required information when applying for an account.

 You are required to enter and submit information in the portal to comply with your obligations under legislation. If you are unable, or choose not, to use the portal you must provide the same information using paper forms.

Can you access or amend your personal information

You can amend your login details for the portal via your account settings or by contacting us.

You are responsible for making sure your details in your account settings are correct and up to date.

If you become a silent elector after you become registered for an election, you are to notify us immediately so that we can take steps to update our records.

There may be circumstances where we may ask you to submit an amended record via the portal.

We may also contact you if we believe on reasonable grounds that any particulars in an application are incomplete or incorrect.

You may be able to access your previous disclosures, applications, claims or other records via the portal however we make no guarantee that they will be available online at any time.

Your previous disclosures or other records submitted to us prior to July 2018 are unavailable on the portal.

Once your online account is closed, you will no longer be able to access your personal information, previous disclosures, registrations and other records from the portal.

If your portal access role changes, access to previous disclosures and other records may change or become unavailable.

Under the Electoral Funding Act, some records are available for inspection at our office or published on our website. Please contact us if you seek access to records available for inspection.

Under the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (PPIP Act) we are not required to provide you access to your personal information or make amendments to your personal information at your request if compliance might detrimentally affect (or prevent the proper exercise of) our complaint handling functions or any of our investigative functions.

Under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA Act) we are not required to provide you access to your personal information if that information relates to our complaint handling, audit, reporting, investigative and prosecuting functions or there is a conclusive or overriding public interest against disclosure.

You can find further information about accessing and amending your personal information in our Privacy Management Plan.

Governing law

These Terms are subject to and governed by the laws and courts of the State of New South Wales.

Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms at any time and they will take effect when published. We will email users to advise of substantial changes.