1. Introduction

The purpose of this document is to outline how the Access City Hotline complies with the service's privacy obligations as required under the Privacy Act 1988 and, in particular, the National Privacy Principles set out in that Act.

We will make this privacy policy available to anyone who asks for it.

As a community organisation, one of our principal concerns is the welfare of our clients. A high level of trust and confidentiality is required to ensure the confidence of the clients we service. We aim to ensure that:

• your privacy will be protected when accessing our services or visiting our premises;
• the personal information collected about you and retained in our records is correct and up-to-date; and
• you can access your personal information for review on request.

2. Collection, use and disclosure of personal information

We recognise that the personal information we collect is often of a highly sensitive nature. We have adopted the highest privacy compliance standards to ensure such information is protected. We collect personal information with the sole purpose of providing the best possible community support services to our clients.

Personal information collected may generally include:

• your name, address, telephone number and email address;
• the community group, organisation or workplace with which you belong to;
• details of your access issue or information request;
• details of your disability but only if strictly necessary to enable us to provide the support and advocacy services you need;
• how you found out about the Access City Hotline; and
• the name of any government agency or community organisation to whom we may refer you to.

We may only collect personal information about you, either

• directly from you; or
• from an organisation or agency who refers you to us, with your consent.

We collect personal information from you, so that we may contact you again in the future, with your permission:

• to provide you with feedback on the resolution of your access issue or concern;
• to provide you with a more appropriate referral or relevant information;
• to determine if you would like to participate in a client survey about what you think of the Access City Hotline and how it could be improved; or
• to provide you with details of upcoming events in the community related to access for people with a disability (eg. The launch of the Access for Everyone website).

The information you provide about:

• your postcode;
• how you found out about the Hotline;
• the community group, organisation or workplace with which you belong to; and
• the name of any community or government agency we refer you to

is used as part of our quality assurance strategy, so that we may monitor the effectiveness of our publicity and referral processes.

We do not use or disclose personal information about you for direct marketing purposes.

3. Other people's information which you provide to us

If you provide personal information to us about someone else (such as a family member, close friend, personal carer or service client) you must ensure that you are entitled to disclose that personal information to us.

You should take reasonable steps to ensure that the individual concerned is aware of the various matters detailed in this policy, including our identity, how to contact us, our purposes for collecting the information, our information disclosure practices, the individual's right to obtain access to the information and to have it corrected, and the consequences for the individual if the information is not provided.

4. Security and storage of personal information

We will use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that information about you is protected from misuse, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, other than in accordance with this policy or the Privacy Act 1988.

Your personal information may be stored either in hard copy or electronic form in our files and/or IT systems.

5. Gaining access to information we hold about you

We will, on request, provide you with access to the personal information we hold about you unless there is an exception which applies under the Privacy Act 1988, such as where we have a legal duty not to disclose the information or where it may be harmful to you to do so.

Your request to obtain access to your information will be dealt with in a reasonable time. We may recover from you our reasonable costs of providing you with access.

If we refuse to provide you with access to the information, we will provide you with reasons for the refusal and inform you of any exceptions relied on under the Privacy Act 1988.

6. Keeping your personal information up to date

We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date whenever we collect or use it.

If you think any of the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, please contact us and, if we agree, we will take reasonable steps to correct the information or, if necessary, discuss alternative options that may be available to you.

7. Internet site privacy policies

We may collect contact information (such as e-mail addresses) for you and other individuals via our internet site.

Unless you object, by using our internet site you consent to us using your personal information collected:

• to monitor who is accessing the internet site or using services offered on the internet site; and
• to profile the type of people accessing the internet site.

We utilise "cookies" which enable us to monitor traffic patterns and to serve you more efficiently if you revisit the site. A cookie does not identify you personally but it does identify your computer. You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie and this will provide you with an opportunity to either accept or reject it in each instance.

We may preserve the content of any e-mail you send us if we believe we have a legal requirement to do so or are otherwise permitted to do so under the Privacy Act.

By using our internet site you consent to your e-mail message content being monitored by us for trouble-shooting or maintenance purposes or if any form of e-mail abuse is suspected.

Personal information which we collect may be aggregated for analysis but in such circumstances we would ensure that individuals remain anonymous.

8. How to contact us

If you wish to complain to us about a breach of your privacy, access your own personal information held by us, correct any information held by us concerning your own personal information or find out more about how we deal with personal information, please contact:

The Privacy Officer
Liz Howarth,
Manager of the Citizens Advice Bureau ACT
Phone - 02 6257 1687

Email - liz@citizensadvice.org.au

We will respond to your enquiry as soon as possible.

Copyright: This work is reproduced in part with the acknowledgement of the ACT Council of Social Service - ACTCOSS, March 2006.