Terms of use for web applications

These terms of use apply to your use of:

Additional terms of use apply to the use of the RecordSearch Forum.

By using the Web Applications or registering as a user of the Web Applications, you are deemed to have agreed to these terms and conditions. If you breach these terms of use, we may take action to enforce our legal rights, which may include the suspension or termination of your Web Application user account.

1. Definitions

For the purposes of these terms of use:

Accessible Material means a digital version of a record forming part of the Collection that is accessible through the Web Applications from time to time. Accessible Material does not include the Metadata relating to that Accessible Material.

Archives means the National Archives of Australia.

Collection means the records held by the Archives in accordance with the Archives Act 1983 (Cth).

Metadata means the set of data accessible through the Web Application providing information about any Accessible Material. This may include contextual information documented using the Commonwealth Record Series (CRS) system such as who created the record, when it was created, its purpose, its title, series and item number, or what other records exist that deal with the same issue or subject.

NameSearch means the facility for searching for Accessible Material in the Archives collection by family name accessible through RecordSearch (see link).

Passenger Arrivals Index means the index of passengers arriving by ship or aircraft to Australian ports and accessible through RecordSearch (see link).

PhotoSearch means the facility for searching for Accessible Material comprising photographic images in the Archives database, accessible through RecordSearch (see link)

Bringing Them Home name index means the facility for searching for Accessible Material comprising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples names and place names within Archives records, accessible through RecordSearch (see link)

RecordSearch means the online facility for searching for Accessible Material comprising Commonwealth records held within Archives’ holdings management system and database (see link). RecordSearch can be used to conduct a basic search, an advanced search, a NameSearch, a PhotoSearch, and a search of the Passenger Arrivals Index. Registered Users can also use RecordSearch to order records or submit an application under section 40 of the Archives Act 1983 (Cth).
Bringing them Home name index can be used to conduct a search of names and places of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples mentioned in archival records. Registered users of organisations with Memoranda of Understanding with Archives can search and submit requests for information to Archives.

RecordSearch Forum means the online forum accessible at http://forum.naa.gov.au/ relating to RecordSearch.

Registered User means a person who has registered to use RecordSearch.

We, us and our means the National Archives of Australia.

Web Applications means the internet address or sub-domain of www.naa.gov.au (currently https://www.naa.gov.au/collection/search/) which allows you to access RecordSearch, NameSearch, PhotoSearch and the Passenger Arrivals Index to search for and retrieve Accessible Information, and includes all related web applications, databases and catalogues made available or accessible via the Web Applications.

Website means the website of the Archives at www.naa.gov.au.

You and your means the user of the Web Application.

2. Copyright in Accessible Material

(a) Ownership

Our Web Applications provide you with access to certain Commonwealth records in the Archives collection. The Commonwealth owns the copyright in most of the records held in the Collection by the Archives as they are official records produced by Commonwealth government agencies and other institutions covered by the Archives Act 1983 (Cth). The Commonwealth is not the copyright owner for records in the Collection which were not made by the government, for example letters written by private individuals to the government or documents provided by other governments. Although such records are the property of the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth cannot give permission to reproduce them as it is not the copyright owner.

For further information on Commonwealth copyright in Accessible Material, see Copyright Fact Sheet 8.

(b) Your licence to Accessible Material

Subject to the additional limitations specified below, where the Commonwealth owns copyright in Accessible Material that is made available for viewing through the Web Application (other than Metadata), you are permitted to use, copy, reproduce, publish, download and communicate such Accessible Material on a fee-free and royalty-free basis under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International licence.

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 Licence

The details of this licence are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode.

The additional limitations applicable to your licence are as follows:

  1. you must only use, copy, reproduce, publish, download or communicate the Accessible Material for personal research or study purposes;
  2. you must acknowledge the Archives as the source of the Accessible Material, including citing the relevant image or item number of the record in accordance with Fact Sheet 7 – Citing Archival Records; and
  3. while there is no fee or charge for downloading, using or reproducing digital copies that are made available online through RecordSearch or PhotoSearch, you must pay any applicable charges if you request high-resolution scans and photocopies of the original record, or low-resolution scans of records not previously digitised. Some applicable charges are identified in Fact Sheet 51 – Copying Charges.

If copyright in any Accessible Material is not owned by the Commonwealth, it is your responsibility as the person wishing to use the record or image to obtain clearance from the copyright holder and to pay any applicable charges.

If you identify yourself as the copyright holder of a digital image on our website and object to its continued availability online, please contact us at [email protected].

3. Copyright in Web Applications

(a) Ownership

Copyright in the Web Applications (including the look and feel of the website, text, trademarks, emblems, graphics, logos, icons, software and database source code) is owned or licensed by the Commonwealth. In some circumstances (for example in relation to the portion of the Passenger Arrivals Index between 1897 and 1972 – see link) the Archives has collaborated with third party corporate entities to offer greater online access to portions of the Archives collection. Where this has occurred copyright in elements of the Web Applications (indexes or metadata) may be owned by third parties. This will be highlighted via specific copyright notices that will apply for that subset of web pages.

(b) Your licence to Web Applications

You may use the Web Applications solely to research and access Accessible Material for personal research or study purposes or to enable you to exercise your rights in the Accessible Material granted under paragraph 2(b) above. All other rights in the Web Applications are reserved to the maximum extent permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) and similar legislation which applies in your location. In particular, you must not in any form or by any means:

  1. adapt, copy, reproduce, re-engineer, store, distribute, print, display, perform, publish or create derivative works from the Web Applications including its portal or interface;
  2. attempt to change, add to, remove, deface, hack or otherwise interfere with the Web Applications or any material or content displayed through the Web Applications;
  3. use any of the trademarks or emblems contained in the Web Applications including our name and the names of any of our licensed partners, in part or as a whole of your own trade mark or business name or company name; or
  4. commercialise any information, products or services obtained from any part of the Web Applications.

4. Copyright in Metadata

(a) Ownership

Copyright in the Metadata is owned or licensed by the Commonwealth.

(b) Your licence to Metadata

You may use the Metadata to research and access Accessible Material solely for personal research or study purposes or to enable you to exercise your rights in the Accessible Material granted under paragraph 2(b) above. All other rights in the Metadata are reserved to the maximum extent permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) and similar legislation which applies in your location. In particular, you must not in any form or by any means:

  1. adapt, copy, reproduce, re-engineer, store, distribute, print, display, perform, publish or create derivative works from the Metadata;
  2. store any Metadata in a database or use or reproduce any Metadata to create a database of the Accessible Material; or
  3. commercialise any information, products or services obtained from or using any part of the Metadata.

5. Registration as a user of the Web Application

Some functions of the Web Application can be performed without registration:

Additional features are available to Registered Users who have a Web Applications account:

To become a Registered User, you must complete the registration form on the Web Application. When registering as a Registered User, you agree to provide the Archives with accurate and complete registration information as required by the registration form. You also agree to inform the Archives of any changes to that information.

Registration is free but non-transferable. Each registration is for a single individual only, unless specifically designated otherwise on the registration page. You agree not to permit anyone other than you to use your account, and to use reasonable endeavours to prevent unauthorised use of your account.

We reserve the right to terminate your account at any time and without notice to you for any reason, including where you have breached these terms of use. These terms of use will continue to survive after we have terminated your account.

6. Privacy

If you become a Registered User, you agree to the collection of your personal information by the Archives for the purposes of registering you as a user of the Web Applications. We will use the information you provide to register you for a Web Applications account, to contact you if there is a problem with your user access and to respond to any request for access to Commonwealth records that you submit through the Web Applications. We may also contact you for future partnership proposals, exhibition information and to seek your views about our products or services.

More information about how the Archives manages personal information can be found in our Privacy Policy. To the extent that you may access or collect any personal information through the Web Application, you agree to comply with our Privacy Policy.

7. Links to the Web Application

You can link your website to the Web Applications without seeking prior permission, as long as you follow the terms and conditions outlined below.

(a) You must not

  1. establish the link in a way that makes the information or services in the Web Applications appear to be part of your site, or attempt to portray any of the Web Applications content as your own;
  2. establish the link in a way that alters, blocks or otherwise prevents the display of any content of the Web Applications to which you have linked;
  3. subject to paragraph 4 above, reproduce, reuse or redistribute any part of the content of the Web Applications for any commercial purpose whatsoever, or distribute to a third party for such purposes, without prior written permission;
  4. display or use a link in a manner that causes the Web Application, or any portion of its content, to display within a frame, be associated with any advertising or sponsorship not part of the Web Applications, or otherwise incorporate the Web Applications content into a third party website;
  5. represent or convey the impression that the Archives approves, endorses, recommends or is in any way connected with you (or any of your related bodies corporate or personnel) your website, or any of your goods or services;
  6. make fun of, satirize, disparage or defame the Archives, its name or logo or any of the Archives’ services or activities; or
  7. have contained in your website any material that is defamatory, pornographic, obscene, discriminatory, harassing, grossly offensive, malicious, unlawful or generally unacceptable as determined at the sole discretion of the Archives.

(b) Archives logos and other business-related trademarks can only be used if the Archives has provided its written approval. No unauthorised usage is permitted. To seek permission, please contact [email protected] or the Communications Manager, National Archives of Australia, PO Box 4924, Kingston, ACT 2604, Australia.

(c) By linking your website to the Web Applications, you:

  1. agree to indemnify the Archives, its employees and agents on the terms set out in paragraph 10; and
  2. acknowledge that the Archives excludes any liability on the terms set out in paragraph 11,

in respect of any loss, expense, injury or damage that occurs as a result of or in connection with your linking or being unable to link to the Web Applications.

(d) You acknowledge that the Archives may terminate your link to the Web Applications, without notice, for any reason whatsoever.

(e) You undertake that data that is downloaded from the Web Applications and in any way displayed or used is regularly checked and updated using the most recent data from the Web Applications. Any data that has been downloaded from the Web Applications and then displayed must clearly indicate the date it was downloaded and carry a disclaimer that the Archives is not liable in any way for incorrect or out of date versions of data downloaded from the Web Applications that are held / published on any third-party site.

(f) The Archives reserves the right to amend these conditions at any time.

8. Third party websites

The Website or the Web Application may contain links to other websites operated, controlled or produced by third parties. Unless otherwise indicated, we do not control, endorse, sponsor or approve any such third party websites or their content nor do we provide any warranty or take any responsibility whatsoever for any aspect of those websites or their content.

9. No Technical Support

We are under no obligation to provide any technical support to any Registered User or other user of the Web Applications. We do not warrant or represent any particular performance characteristics or general availability of the Web Applications.

10. Indemnity

You indemnify us and our employees and agents against all actions, claims and demands (including the cost of defending or settling any action, claim or demand) which may be instituted against us arising out of your failure to comply with these terms of use.

11. Disclaimer

The Archives does not guarantee the quality of the Web Application and accepts no liability for any loss, expense, injury or damage that occurs as a result of using or in connection with the Web Application, regardless of how that loss, damage, expense or injury arises.

The Archives is unable to guarantee the accuracy, currency, completeness or relevance of the material contained within the Web Application including Accessible Material and Metadata. You acknowledge and accept that Accessible Material and Metadata may include technical inaccuracies and typographical errors. Neither we nor the Commonwealth should not be deemed to endorse the content of the Accessible Material, in particular any that which may include views or recommendations of third parties, which do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commonwealth, or indicate its commitment to a particular course of action.

To the extent permitted by law we exclude completely all liability for loss or damage of any kind (including special, indirect or consequential loss and including loss of business profits) howsoever caused (including negligence) directly or indirectly arising from your use of the Web Application or reliance on the Accessible Material or Metadata.

We do not guarantee that access to the Website or the Web Application will be uninterrupted or that the Website or Web Application is free from harmful code, material or viruses or anything else which may damage any computer which accesses the Website or the Web Application or any data on such a computer. You must take your own precautions (such as installing appropriate and up to date firewall, anti-spyware and anti-virus software and anti-spam filters) to ensure that your access to our Website or the Web Application does not expose you to the risk of any harmful code, material or virus which may damage your computer system.

12. Jurisdiction

These terms of use of use are governed by the laws in force in the Australian Capital Territory, Australia. In the event that a dispute arises from these terms of use, you agree to submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the Australian Capital Territory, Australia.

13. Changes or amendments to the terms of use

We reserve the right to amend these terms of use from time to time. Any amendments that we make to these terms of use will be effective immediately upon notification on the Website. We will not send you an alert or a notification that the terms of use have changed. If you continue to use the Web Applications after we have issued a notification on the Website, your continued use will represent an agreement from you to be bound by the terms of use as they are amended.

14. General

If we waive any rights available to us under these terms of use on one occasion, this does not means that those rights will automatically be waived on any other occasion.

If any of these terms of use are held to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal for any reason, the remaining terms of use shall nevertheless continue in full force.

15. Accessibility

Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Australian Government agencies are required to ensure information and services are provided in a non-discriminatory accessible manner.

We are committed to ensuring that the Web Applications are compliant with Level A of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0. It will be upgraded to Level AA compliance over time. WCAG 2.0 is a standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and endorsed by the Australian Government.

16. Further enquiries

For enquiries regarding the licences granted under these terms of use or to seek permission for any use of the Web Applications, Accessible Material or Metadata outside of the scope of such licences, please contact [email protected] or submit a copyright request [[email protected]], or contact the Communications Manager, National Archives of Australia, PO Box 4924, Kingston, ACT 2604, Australia.

17. To Return to the Web Applications

To return to the Web Applications, click where indicated. By doing so, you acknowledge that you have read, understood and that you accept the above terms of use for access to the Web Applications.

Last updated May 2016