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Our privacy values

Our privacy vision is to be “transparent to the public, trustworthy by design”.


As a government agency that handles personal and business information every day, we have a responsibility to ensure we manage your information with care and respect, and that any information we disclose is done so appropriately.

To be transparent and trustworthy we will:

'Be privacy aware and treat your information with care, respect and in a transparent manner to promote your trust and confidence.'

To help gain your trust and confidence, the privacy team will:

  • make privacy easy for you as well as something we want to engage in
  • be trusted advisors to Customs
  • foster a confident well-educated workforce that makes the right decisions
  • create guidance that helps the business meet its objectives
  • encourage you to think of privacy as allowing the business to work safely rather than just a compliance exercise
  • help shape border sector privacy
  • ensure privacy risks are identified and managed
  • keep you informed.

Our  privacy strategy focuses on four areas of information management, collection, use, security and disclosure or, as we have named them, Collect, Respect, Protect and Connect.

Collect and Connect are the outward facing aspects of our strategy. In other words how we interact with you and other agencies.  Respect and Protect are about what we do with your information inside Customs.

Collect covers how and why we collect information from you and other agencies.

Respect relates to how we use and manage the information we hold about you.

Protect is about ensuring your information is kept safe and not misused.

Connect concerns how, when, and why we might disclose information to other agencies.

The following diagram shows you what our privacy aims and goals are: