Privacy Policy

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How we handle your personal information

1. We commit to protecting your privacy and complying with our legal obligations about how we collect, manage and secure your personal information. If we make mistakes, we will fix them as promptly as we can.

Definitions

2. Human Rights Advocates Australia may, depending on the circumstances, collect personal information including health or sensitive information.

3. Personal information: any information that can identify a person like a name, contact details.

4. Health information: information about an identifiable person regarding their physical, mental or psychological health or disability or how they want health services to be provided.

We must comply with privacy law when we handle information

6. The Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 regulates the collection and handling of all personal information in the Victorian public sector. The Health Records Act 2001 requires the public and private sectors to responsibly handle health information. We must store personal information carefully and prevent unauthorised access, misuse or loss. These laws require us to only collect or use information that is necessary to perform our functions and authorised by law.

7. Occasionally, the law may authorise us to use or provide personal information for another reason. Section 176 of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 prevents our staff from making a record of or disclosing any information about individuals outside of this organisation that they collect in the course of work, unless:

· the performance of our functions, powers and duties makes keeping a record or disclosure necessary

· a court orders us to disclose the information due to criminal proceedings

· an individual gives us consent to do so.

The information we collect and why we collect it

8. Human Rights Advocates Australia is an independent body which provides a dispute resolution service. We offer education and consultancy services. We intervene in legal cases involving the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 and Charter & Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cwth).. We work with clients and stakeholders. This means that we have information about enquirers and complainants, people attending meetings or education sessions, parties involved in litigation, stakeholders we work with and members of staff. The type of information we collect depends on the service we are providing. We will only collect information connected to our work.  

9. We provide information to people enquiring about discrimination. We often collect personal information from enquirers. For example, a person may provide health information if asking about discrimination based on disability.

10. We resolve disputes. To assist with this, we may collect contact details, details about an employer and co-workers, a medical condition, recreational activities, family, and other information about someone’s personal circumstances to help us resolve a complaint. We sometimes ask for sensitive information to resolve disputes about discrimination. Providing sensitive information is always optional.

11. When collecting information, we will take reasonable steps to advise you about what information we are seeking and why we are asking for it. We will tell you whether any law requires the collection of the information and the consequences, if any, of not providing it. In most cases, providing the information will be optional. However, this may limit the service we can provide.

How we use your information

15. We use personal information for the purposes that it was provided. We also use information gathered from disputes, investigations and enquiries for related uses. For example, research, education or reporting publicly on our activities. However, we will not disclose information in a way that can identify a person, unless the individual agrees to this.

16. There are some limited circumstances when we may release information. For example, it may be lawful for us to disclose information if a court orders us to do so.

How we keep your information safe

18. We handle your information with great care to prevent loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We require our staff to handle information carefully and only obtain what they need in order to do their work.