Disaster Recovery & Back-up Policy Template (Australia)

Use this policy if you:

• Rely on servers, cloud systems or a network file system to run your day-to-day operations and need a documented recovery plan
• Want a written procedure staff can follow when systems fail, data is lost or the office is inaccessible
• Need to define who forms an incident recovery team, how incidents are escalated and when the plan is invoked
• Want to record your backup arrangements, restoration steps and testing expectations in one place
• Need a documented plan you can issue to staff during induction and review annually

It is suited to:

• Australian businesses that depend on ICT systems and cloud-based data to operate
• Organisations with an in-house IT function or an external IT services provider
• Businesses building out operational risk, business continuity and information security frameworks
• Leadership teams, incident management teams and compliance or risk personnel responsible for continuity planning

What this policy covers:

• Policy statement and objectives, including risk assessment, testing, staff awareness and keeping the plan current
• Roles and responsibilities for the plan owner or leadership team, the incident management team and your IT services provider
• Incident recovery team personnel, contact details, escalation and invocation, plus a first 24-hour recovery team checklist
• Backup procedures, including minimum backup requirements, maximum tolerable data loss, backup security, restoration and ad-hoc backups
• Threat assessment using a likelihood and impact matrix, with categorised ICT risks and threat items
• Disaster recovery procedures for scenarios where the network is intact, where it is not operational, power failures, and serious virus or information security incidents
• Site access, asset register checks, restoration confirmation, password resets, insurance notification and incident reporting
• Monitoring, annual review, a disaster recovery checklist appendix and a completion and approval table

You receive an editable Word document with placeholders for your company name, version and effective date, approver or governing body, roles, key contacts, contact numbers and your IT services team, so you can tailor the policy to your structure before issuing it to staff. It gives you a practical, lawyer-drafted starting point for disaster recovery and backup planning, not a substitute for tailored legal or technical advice where your systems, data holdings or continuity risks are complex.