Privacy Policy

General Principals

In line with our guiding principal of acting responsibly and with integrity, we are, and will remain, committed to respecting and protecting the privacy of all persons with whom we have dealings.

This includes:

1. Maintaining the trust of persons we support and assist.
2. Protecting the privacy and respecting the confidentiality of information provided to us.
3. Working to the essence of the National Privacy Principals.
4. No trade or disclosure of information to third parties, except as permitted or required by law.

Privacy Act

In essence, the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 provides individuals with rights regarding their personal details and imposes obligations on organisations holding personal information.

1. The Act applies to us both because our annual income exceeds $3 million and because we are Human Services organisation.
2. The Act extends to us the basic privacy obligations that have applied to the Commonwealth Government since 1988.
3. The Act covers "personal information", namely any information or opinion that can identify a person.
4. Special protection applies to "sensitive" personal information, for us this mainly constitutes health information. However, it can also include racial or ethnic details, political opinions or associations, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of professional or trade associations or trade unions, sexual preferences or practices and criminal records.
5. The Act sets National Privacy Principals for us to operate by, in-line with international standard procedures.

National Privacy Principals

A complete set of the National Privacy Principals is available. In summary, we are obliged to take reasonable or practical steps to ensure the privacy of information provided to us, including:

1. Anonymity: We give people the option of interacting anonymously with us.
2. Necessity: We collect only personal information that is necessary for our functions or activities.
3. Method: We use fair and lawful ways to collect personal information.
4. Direct: We collect personal information directly from an individual.
5. Consent: We get consent to collect sensitive information unless exempted.
6. Awareness: We make an individual aware of specified matters including why we are collecting and who else we might give it to.
7. Use: We use or disclose personal information only for the primary purpose of collection, unless exempted, with extra constraints for sensitive information.
8. Accuracy: We take steps to ensure that personal information is accurate, complete and up-to-date.
9. Security: We protect personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
10. Destroy: We destroy personal information if we no longer need it.
11. Communication: We have this short readily available document covering the way we manage personal information.
12. Openness: We inform any individuals who ask with the type of information we hold, what purpose we hold it for and how we collect it, use and disclose that information.
13. Access: We give any individuals who ask access to any personal information we may hold about them.
14. Restrict: We restrict the use and disclosure of Commonwealth Government identifiers to circumstances allowed by law.
15. Internationally: We transfer personal information overseas only if certain stringent requirements are met.