ESTA Act and Ministerial Authorisation
Section 33 of the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority Act 2004 (ESTA is titled “Secrecy” and protects the "confidential information" of callers (whether or not such information is considered personal or health information) by limiting the use that ESTA, its employees and any others may make in relation to that information.
ESTA has Ministerial Authorisation permitting the release of otherwise confidential information in specific circumstances, this includes the written authority of the person to whom the information relates. This includes the call maker and others identified in the call.
The Authorisation does not permit the disclosure or communication of information that would reveal the identity of an individual or an organisation without the express or implied consent of each individual or organisation concerned.
Requesting triple zero audio recordings
ESTA is restricted in what information it may release and to who it can release information about.
For ESTA to consider releasing information to you, at a minimum you should be either:
- the person who made the call (or their agent)
- the next of kin of a person who made a call, who is either a child or is deceased
- a person who is a subject of the triple zero call where the caller either provides consent or cannot be identified.
Identification of others
In many triple zero calls other people may be identified by their voice, name, description, their address or location, their work or profession, by their relationship to the caller, or the circumstances being reported via triple zero.
The Ministerial Authorisation does not permit the disclosure or communication of information that would reveal the identity of an individual or an organisation without the express or implied consent of each individual or organisation concerned. If an individual is incapable of giving consent, the consent of the individual's next of kin or personal legal representative must be obtained.
If an individual does not give consent to release their call, then the request to release the call will be refused under s33 of the ESTA Act.
Proof of identity
If the documents requested refer to you personally, you must provide photographic proof of identification (e.g. a scanned copy of your driver’s licence or passport). Without proof of identity ESTA cannot grant access to personal information.
If you are a next of kin, you will need to provide your identification and proof of that relationship (e.g. a death certificate or a child’s birth certificate with your name).
If you are not the person who made the call, then you will need to provide proof of identification from the person who made the call along with that person’s authority to release this information.
Requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Submitting a request
Ensure you have all the information relating to the call that will enable us to locate the event and consider release:
- Date and time of call
- Location of event (street and suburb)
- Telephone number used to contact triple zero (if known)
- Caller and requester identification document
- Next of kin authority, proof of relationship or death certificate (if relevant)
- Consent of any person that is identified in the call, including the caller
Consent form
Information for law firms requesting information
To make your request quicker for us to process, please provide ESTA with as much information as possible about the call you require, such as:
- Date and time of call/incident
- Location of call/incident
- Brief description of incident
- Whether your client is the caller (and if so, what number they called from)
- If your client was not the caller, any information they know about the caller, such as name and phone number called from.
- Please be aware that ESTA has to contact any third party caller (or even those on the call too) and obtain their consent under s33 of the ESTA Act to be able to release their call. Their personal information also includes their voice.
- If you know of a court date or other reason for an urgent request, please advise us of this when making the request.
- A valid authority from your client that is signed and dated and includes wording that is relevant to your request to ESTA. An authority limiting to just “health information” is not sufficient.
Further points to note:
- ESTA is currently only able to provide the call recordings themselves.
- We can redact the call audio, and may need to do so, if requested by the caller.
Other ways to request information
If you require information relating to the actual services that attended an event, consider making a Freedom of Information request to the service concerned:
- Victoria Police – Freedom of
- Ambulance Victoria – Freedom of
- Country Fire Authority (CFA) – Freedom of
- Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) – Freedom of
- SES Victoria – Freedom of
- Court matter – consider issuing ESTA with a subpoena to produce the call audio. Victoria’s court websites have links to the appropriate forms.
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Reviewed 15 March 2023