Social Media Community Guidelines

1. About

The purpose of the State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA) Social Media Community Guidelines (guidelines) is to ensure social media users engaging on SIRA social media platforms act respectfully, responsibly and exercise judgement when participating in the communities. The guidelines:

• set out the rights of SIRA when engaging with the public through social media
• establish expectations and rules on engagement between SIRA and the public
• set out actions that SIRA will take if the Guidelines are breached.

1.1 Agreeing to the guidelines

If you do not accept to act in accordance with these guidelines, you must refrain from using or engaging with SIRA’s social media channels.

These guidelines may be modified at any time. It is your responsibility to keep up to date with the modifications to the guidelines. If you participate in SIRA’s social media channels following any modification, you will be considered to have accepted the modified guidelines.

1.2 Engaging with SIRA on social media

SIRA social media is used to share SIRA news, with a goal to provide a channel for SIRA to engage with the community on its work and as communication medium with customers and stakeholders.

We value comments and look forward to hearing your opinions, but these posts must be relevant, remain respectful and must not offend others in the online community.

2. Use of SIRA social media channels

SIRA engages with customers and stakeholders in the public domain in accordance with the terms and conditions of the hosting social media platform in use. By using or engaging with the SIRA social media channels (including posting, commenting and sharing) you agree to be bound by these terms.

When engaging on SIRA social media channels, including posting, commenting and sharing, you must not post content that contains:

• content or links that are unlawful, or may defame, discriminate, offend, interfere with privacy or infringe copyright or other intellectual property rights
• vilification or discrimination against any particular gender, religion, sexual preference, age, disability, marital or domestic status, race/ethnicity, criminal record or political opinion
• swearing or abusive terms in any language
• deceptive, misleading or fraudulent information, including impersonating or falsely representing any other person or organization
• personal attacks against other users, members of the public or SIRA, and related agencies or staff members
• reposts of other user's requests or offers, or anything else that could be considered spam;
• personal information relating to yourself or others (names, email addresses, phone numbers or photographs)
• comments that are threatening, harassing, spiteful or abusive
• comments that are unduly provocative (including without limitation, flaming, trolling or otherwise hostile content) or which is false, misleading or deceptive
• computer viruses or other computer files or code which adversely affects the operation of SIRA’s systems, or any equipment linked to them.

3. How SIRA moderates its social media channels

SIRA continually moderates and monitors its social media channels, and aims to:

• respond by answering legitimate questions with accuracy and transparency
• use plain English
• ensure all posts and responses are accessible
• respond to comments in a polite and professional tone
• respond to comments within two business days.

3.1 Managing responses

If SIRA identifies a comment that contravenes any of the terms mentioned in section 2 of these guidelines, SIRA may take any of the following actions:

• the comment will be hidden from view
• a private message may be sent to the commentator clearly setting out how they have contravened the SIRA Social Media Community Guidelines
• if three or more breaches are made, the commentator may be blocked from SIRA channels.

If SIRA identifies a comment on its social media channels that is considered a complaint about SIRA, the SIRA Complaint Handling Policy will apply.

SIRA does not endorse or otherwise support any views, opinions or comments posted on its social media accounts and any content, sources or accounts that it acknowledges, follows, links, retweets or shares on our social media channels.

4. Sharing personal information

Customers may choose to share contact information with SIRA via its official social media account in private settings (direct messages) of the platform to allow further investigation of an enquiry. Customers accept any risks with the relevant social media platform’s terms and conditions, and its privacy policies.  SIRA advises that information and enquiries should be submitted through to SIRA by email to ensure appropriate action.

4.1 Disclaimer

SIRA accepts no responsibility, or liability for any loss, damage, cost or expense, which you or another party directly or indirectly suffers arising out of, or in connection with, your use of, or reliance on, any posts, comments or any other information made available or accessible through our social medial channels or any linked site or facility.

To the extent permitted by law, SIRA accepts no liability arising from its moderation or removal of, or failure to moderate or remove, any post, comment or other material (including inappropriate content) from its social media channels.

4.2 SIRA privacy collection notice

Information you provide over social media is used to help with your enquiry. This information is collected from you on a voluntary basis and may be disclosed to other government agencies in order to assist with your enquiry or escalate to the appropriate team. Your information may also be used to improve the customer experience. SIRA will not disclose your personal information to third parties for any purposes not already stated in this Privacy Collection Notice, or to which you have otherwise consented, unless SIRA is required, or authorised, by law to do so.

Our privacy page explains how we collect, use, store, disclose and dispose of personal and health information in line with the NSW privacy laws.

You may ask for access to the information we hold about you at any time and request to update, correct or amend your personal information by contacting:

Privacy Officer  
State Insurance Regulatory Authority   
Locked Bag 2906  
Lisarow NSW 2252  
Email

Contact

For more information on these Guidelines or to report a post or comment on our social media channels, please contact SIRA External Communications team.

Version number

The current Social Media Community Guidelines are Version 1 published 22 August 2023.