Privacy

Introduction

At CareChoice Pty Ltd (“we”, “us” and “our”), we recognise the importance of protecting your personal information. We are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs”).

Our Privacy Policy sets out how we comply with the APPs. In particular, it sets out how we collect, use, disclose, dispose and otherwise deal with personal information which we may collect from you or which we may collect about you from third parties.

This Website Privacy Statement applies to all personal information that we collect via the website located at carechoice.co.au (“Website”).

What is Personal Information and why do we collect it?

We collect and hold a range of personal information about our Clients, their representatives, our employees, members of the public, suppliers, contractors and the service providers we engage.

The personal information we collect about you will depend on how you use the Website. CareChoice will only collect personal information where it is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, one or more of our functions or activities.

What kinds of Personal Information do we collect?

Broadly, we may collect or hold the following personal information in relation to any persons who use the Website:

• name, address, telephone number, an email address;
• age, gender;
• banking details, credit card details;
• information about your health, disability, and support needs;
• your Medicare number and other identifiers used by Government agencies or other organisations to identify you;
• any finance/insurance/funding details about how your supports will be paid for including any plans/quotes/eligibility assessments relating to the supports;
• job applications;
• work histories; curriculum vitaes;
• Tax File Number;
• educational qualifications;
• IP address; and
• Internet service provider.

How do we collect your personal information?

CareChoice collects your personal information via interactions with the Website, such as through support enquiry forms and expressions of interest for employment.

We also collect cookies from your computer which enable us to tell when you use the website and also to help customise your website experience, (described below).

Purpose of Collection

We will only use your personal information as permitted by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) or to comply with our legal obligations as a support and care service provider. We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

• to assess your eligibility for support;
• to provide safe and responsive support in line with client requests;
• to monitor the supports provided;
• to fulfil contractual and other requirements to provide data and statistical information (non-identifying or identifying) to government agencies;
• to answer enquiries and deliver services;
• to manage administrative requirements;
• to connect you with third parties and our collaborators depending on the level of support that you require;
• to process employment applications and provide offers of work;
• to assess your suitability to perform the duties required and deliver services to our Clients, where required; and
• to improve the services and supports we offer through quality improvement activities such as training.

Where we use your personal information to communicate with you for marketing purposes, you will be given an opportunity to opt-out of receiving such information.  If you elect to opt out and you are in receipt of our services, you may still be invited to participate in our annual Voice of the Customer survey.  Our annual customer survey provides feedback about our services and is essential for meeting our quality standards.

If you do not wish to receive an invitation to participate in our annual Voice of the Customer survey, please contact us and let us know. Call: 1300 737 942 or emailing: [email protected]

Disclosure of Information

Other than for the purpose for which we collected your personal information, we will only disclose your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) or when complying with our obligations under laws, such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013.

We may disclose your personal information to other parties involved in providing, evaluating or administering our supports or services.  This may include disclosure of information to, for example, your doctor or their allied health service providers, your support workers, other support and accommodation providers and personnel involved in the provision of support or services to you.

We use personal information about job applicants and contractors:

• to assess their suitability to perform the duties required and deliver care and services to our Clients, where required;
• to meet our obligations under relevant laws, including the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 and workplace laws;
• to improve the services we offer through quality improvement activities such as training;
• to assess and manage the supply of goods and services to us by a prospective or current contractor;
• government agencies where this is necessary for us to receive funding and/or comply with our legal obligations to notify the government and police of certain matters.

Access and Correction

It is important that the information we hold about our Clients, employees, job applicants and contractors is accurate.  Except in certain situations, you have the right to access your personal information and ask us to correct it.  We will take reasonable steps to update or correct, as soon as possible, any information in our possession that is inaccurate, incomplete, out-of-date, irrelevant or misleading.

We may refuse to grant you access where this is allowed or required by law, for example, where this would have a negative impact on someone else’s privacy.  If we do refuse to grant access, we will give you written reasons.

If you would like to access or correct your personal information, please contact:

Privacy Officer

Phone: 1300 737 942

Email: [email protected]

Postal address: P.O. Box 1155, South Clayton, Victoria 3169

We may charge you a small fee for accessing your personal information, as permitted by law.

Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme

The Privacy Act provides for the Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme, under which the CareChoice is required to notify the Australian Information Commissioner and impacted individuals “as soon as practicable” after becoming aware that an eligible data breach has occurred.

For a data breach to be eligible and therefore require notification, the following criteria must all be satisfied:

• there is unauthorised access to or unauthorised disclosure of personal information, or a loss of personal information, that CareChoice holds;
• this is likely to result in serious harm to one or more individuals; and
• CareChoice has not been able to prevent the likely risk of serious harm with remedial action.

For serious harm to have incurred to an individual the data breach would normally involve serious physical, psychological, emotional, financial, or reputational harm.

If we have taken remedial action as soon as practicable after a breach has occurred, it is unlikely the incident will result in serious harm to affected individuals. In this case, CareChoice may not be required to report the incident.

In cases where CareChoice suspects a data breach has occurred, it will undertake an assessment into the circumstances within 30 days to ascertain whether or not it has actually occurred, and therefore whether it needs to notify.

There are significant penalties applying to both individuals and organisations for a failure to comply with the notification rules.

Any suspected and known breaches should be advised to:

Privacy Officer

Phone: 1300 737 942

Email: [email protected]

Postal address: P.O. Box 1155, South Clayton, Victoria 3169

Complaints

You have the right to complain if you believe we have breached this policy or your rights under the Australian Privacy Principles.

To lodge a complaint, you can:

• Write to: CareChoice, PO Box 1155, Clayton South VIC 3169.
• Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
• Telephone: 1300 737 942and ask to speak to the Privacy Officer

All feedback and complaints regarding privacy will be dealt with in accordance with our Feedback and Complaints Management Policy and Procedure.

While we would always prefer to resolve your complaint directly, you are also able to make a complaint to any of the following outside agencies.

Overseas Transfer

Your personal information will not be disclosed to recipients outside Australia unless you expressly request us to do so. If you request us to transfer your personal information to an overseas recipient, the overseas recipient will not be required to comply with the Australian Privacy Principles and we will not be liable for any mishandling of your information in such circumstances.

Cookies

We use cookies, tracking pixels and related technologies on the Website. By using the Website, you consent to the use of these cookies, tracking pixels and related technologies.

Cookies are a small file stored in the browser on your device.

Cookies dropped by us or third parties may also be used to track how you use the site to target ads to you on other websites across the internet.

A cookie does not identify you personally but it does identify your computer.

The use of Cookies allows us to provide you with continuity during your browsing session. We also use Google Analytics to collect high level information about the people who visit our website (such as pages viewed, devices used and interests) so we can customise our communication and advertising through other networks.  You can choose not to accept cookies by changing the settings in your web browser.

If you have any questions or issues about our privacy policy or collection of data, please email us at [email protected]