Australia: Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission Private Ancillary Funds Privacy Opt-in ends 5 November 2013

Under the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission Act 2012, certain information must be published by the Commissioner on the ACNC Register for the public to view. This information includes the entity's name, ABN, sub-type, governing rules, details of responsible entities, information statements, financial reports or any other information the Commissioner is authorised to collect. This is very broad and in some circumstances charities may wish to apply for the information to be withheld from the ACNC Register. The Commissioner may withhold information if it is commercially sensitive or has the potential to cause detriment to the registered charity or an individual. We recommend all charities registered with the ACNC consider whether certain information should be withheld from the ACNC Register.

The scope for withholding information from the ACNC Register was widened by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Regulation 2013. Amongst other things, the Regulation offered additional privacy protections for Private Ancillary Funds (PAF) registered as charities with the ACNC. Typically, these protections were introduced in order to protect the identity of individual philanthropists or donors and to prevent an unreasonable burden being placed on PAFs whereby they might be inundated with donation requests from other not-for-profit entities.

For these protections to apply, the PAF must apply to the Commissioner in the approved form to prevent the publication of certain information on the register where the publication of such information may result in the identification of a donor's details. Form AE is available through the Private and Public Ancillary Fund Factsheet on the ACNC website. The Commissioner will temporarily withhold information from the ACNC Register until 5 November 2013 in order to allow PAFs to submit their applications. After this date, the ACNC will stop withholding information where there has been no application. Information will be withheld while an application is being considered.

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