About this policy
Version 1.0, March 2014
The Privacy Act 1988 requires entities bound by the Australian Privacy Principles to have a privacy policy. This privacy policy outlines the personal information handling practices of Home Design for Living. This policy is written in simple language. The specific legal obligations of Home Design for Living when collecting and handling your personal information are outlined in the Privacy Act 1988, the Australian Privacy Principles found in that Act, the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 and the Freedom of Information Act 1982. We will update this privacy policy when our information handling practices change. Updates will be publicised on our website and through our email lists.
Overview
We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information to carry out functions or activities under the Privacy Act 1988, the Australian Privacy Principles found in that Act, the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 and the Freedom of Information Act 1982.
These functions and activities include:
- providing a comprehensive health service to clients and administering its business
- responding to access to information requests
- communicating with the public, stakeholders and the media including through websites and social media.
Collection of your personal information
At all times we try to only collect the information we need for the particular function or activity we are carrying out.
The main way we collect personal information about you is when you give it to us, for example, we collect personal information that is necessary to provide a comprehensive service to you and to administer our business.
Where it is reasonable and practicable, Home Design for Living will collect personal information from you directly or take reasonable steps to verify information received from authorised third parties. An authorized third party representative is someone acting on behalf of you (i.e. public trustee, legal guardian, family member)
Where information is collected from a third party, the Home Design for Living will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are aware of matters regarding the collection and use of your personal details.
When the service collects personal information reasonable steps will be taken to
ensure you are aware of:
- Home Design for Living staff identity and contact details
- the purposes for which the information is collected
- how staff are able to access the information
- who the service may disclose this information to and under what circumstances
- any consequences for you if required information is not provided
- how the information is stored
Home Design for Living will not collect personal information such as political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, details of health, disability or sexual preferences unless:
a) You have consented; or
b) The collection is required or specifically authorized by law; or
c) The collection is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to your life or health, where you are physically or legally incapable of giving consent; or
d) The collection is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal claim; or
e) The collection is necessary for the provision of services to the individual; or
f) The collection is necessary for:
- Research relevant to public health or public safety;
- The compilation or analysis of statistics relevant to public health or safety;
- The management, funding or monitoring of a health service
Collecting sensitive information
Sometimes we may need to collect sensitive information about you. This might include information about your health or disability.
Indirect collection
In the course of delivering our service, we may collect personal information (including sensitive information) about you indirectly from publicly available sources or from third parties such as:
- your authorised representative, if you have one
We also collect personal information from publicly available sources to enable us to contact stakeholders who may be interested in our work or in participating in our consultations.
Anonymity
Where possible, we will allow you to interact with us anonymously or using a pseudonym. For example, if you contact our Enquiries line with a general question we will not ask for your name unless we need it to adequately handle your question.
However, for most of our functions and activities we usually need your name and contact information and enough information about the particular matter to enable us to fairly and efficiently handle your inquiry, request, complaint, or to act on your request.
Collecting through our websites
Home Design for Living has its own public website — www.homedesignforliving.com. We also have a separate Facebook Page – HomeMods4OT – where we allow comments on home modification practice.
Where our website allows you to make comments or give feedback, we collect your email address and sometimes other contact details. We may use your email address to respond to your feedback. We store this personal information on servers located in Australia.
Analytic, session and cookie tools
We use a range of tools provided by third parties, including Google, and our web hosting company, to collect or view website traffic information. These sites have their own privacy policies. We also use cookies and session tools to improve your experience when accessing our website.
The information collected by these tools may include the IP address of the device you are using and information about sites that IP address has come from, the pages accessed on our site and the next site visited. We use the information to maintain, secure and improve our websites and to enhance your experience when using them. In relation to Google Analytics you can opt out of the collection of this information using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
Social Networking Services
We use social networking services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to communicate with the public about our work. When you communicate with us using these services we may collect your personal information, but we only use it to help us to communicate with you and the public. The social networking service will also handle your personal information for its own purposes. These sites have their own privacy policies.
Email list
We collect your email and, if you provide it, other contact details when you subscribe to our email lists. We only use this information for the purpose of sending you regular updates on the activities of the Home Design for Living, and to administer the list.
Disclosure
Common situations in which we disclose information are detailed below.
Disclosure of sensitive information
We only disclose your sensitive information for the purposes for which you gave it to us or for directly related purposes you would reasonably expect or if you agree.
Information will be disclosed / service provision can take place if:
- Home Design for Living staff told you when collecting it that it would be disclosed for that purpose or for a related purpose that you would reasonably expect
- Staff obtained your consent
- Staff are required by law to disclose it
- It is otherwise permitted under the Act
- An authorized third party representative can provide written confirmation of representation (especially when a fee-for-service provision is being undertaken)
Disclosure of personal information overseas
Web traffic information is disclosed to Google Analytics when you visit our websites. Google stores information across multiple countries. For further information see Google Data Centers and Google Locations.
When you communicate with us through a social network service such as Facebook or Twitter, the social network provider and its partners may collect and hold your personal information overseas.
Quality of personal information
To ensure that the personal information we collect is accurate, up-to-date and complete we:
- record information in a consistent format
- where necessary, confirm the accuracy of information we collect from a third party or a public source
- promptly add updated or new personal information to existing records
- regularly audit our contact lists to check their accuracy.
We also review the quality of personal information before we use or disclose it.
Storage and security of personal information
Personal information may be stored as hard copy documents and/or as electronic data. Home Design for Living is committed to ensuring that the collected information is protected from loss and misuse and from unauthorized access, modification and disclosure.
We take steps to protect the security of the personal information we hold from both internal and external threats by:
- regularly assessing the risk of misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure that information
- taking measures to address those risks, for example, we keep a record (audit trail) of when someone has added, changed or deleted personal information held in our electronic databases and regularly check that staff only access those records when they need to
- conducting regular internal and external audits to assess whether we have adequately complied with or implemented these measures.
We destroy personal information in a secure manner.
Accessing and correcting your personal information
Under the Privacy Act (Australian Privacy Principles 12 and 13) you have the right to ask for access to personal information that we hold about you, and ask that we correct that personal information. You can ask for access or correction by contacting us and we must respond within 30 days. If you ask, we must give you access to your personal information, and take reasonable steps to correct it if we consider it is incorrect, unless there is a law that allows or requires us not to.
We will ask you to verify your identity before we give you access to your information or correct it, and we will try to make the process as simple as possible. If we refuse to give you access to, or correct, your personal information, we must notify you in writing setting out the reasons.
If we make a correction and we have disclosed the incorrect information to others, you can ask us to tell them about the correction. We must do so unless there is a valid reason not to.
If we refuse to correct your personal information, you can ask us to associate with it (for example, attach or link) a statement that you believe the information is incorrect and why.
You also have the right under the FOI Act to request access to documents that we hold and ask for information that we hold about you to be changed or annotated if it is incomplete, incorrect, out-of-date or misleading.
How to make a complaint
If you wish to complain to us about how we have handled your personal information you should complain in writing. We will respond to the complaint within 30 days.
How to contact us
You can contact us at:
• info@homedesignforliving.com
• 0408 781 554
• PO Box 504, Coorparoo Q 4151, Australia.