PRIVACY POLICY
Flourish Psychology respects the privacy of its clients, patients and website visitors and is committed to respecting and safeguarding their privacy. The way we manage personal information is governed by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) which are contained in the Act.
This policy describes how we collect and manage personal information.
1. Personal information
"Personal information" is any information or opinion, regardless of the form in which it is recorded, about an individual whose identity is apparent or can be determined from the information or opinion.
“Health information” is any personal information about a person’s health or disability. It includes information or opinion about that person’s illness, injury or disability. Health information is considered sensitive personal information.
The Act prescribes additional protections for the collection of health information. We adhere to the Act.
2. Collection of personal and health information
2.1 Personal information
From time to time, Flourish Psychology will receive, collect and store personal information. This includes when a person:
(a) contacts us via our website, via email or over the phone;
(b) visits our practice;
(c) notifies us of a change in contact details;
(d) provides feedback on our practice via a questionnaire, over the phone or on our website; or
(e) otherwise enters into correspondence with us.
The types of information we may collect includes:
(a) contact details (including name, address, telephone number and email);
(b) payment details, such as credit card details;
(c) anonymous website usage information and statistics when we track the behaviour of website users;
(d) details of special requests, for example, in relation to seating or wheelchair access;
(e) records of enquiries into products and services; and
(f) records of correspondence with us.
2.2 Health information
Flourish Psychology will only collect sensitive information if the individual concerned consents to the collection of the information or if the collection of information is:
(a) required or authorised by or under an Australian law or a court/tribunal order;
(b) required due to a permitted health situation;
(c) required in the course of medical history taking; or
(d) otherwise required or permitted pursuant to the Act.
2.3 Collection of information from third parties
We may also collect personal or health information from third parties. This includes where it is unreasonable or impracticable to collect information from the individual concerned.
We may collect health information from the parents and caregivers of children.
If we receive information from third parties, we will protect it in accordance with this policy.
2.4 Reasons for collecting personal information
We collect personal information in order to:
(a) Provide information, updates and our services;
(b) Effectively communicate regarding appointments and make clients aware of services and opportunities available;
(c) process any communications sent to us (for example, any enquiries, feedback and complaints);
(d) send patients any information they have requested;
(e) identify clients and protect clients from unauthorised access to their personal or account information;
(f) meet any legal obligations that require us to identify a patient before dealing with them;
(g) contact you if necessary;
(h) take any action we are legally required or authorised to take.
We may contact clients by a variety of measures including, but not limited to, telephone, email, SMS or mail.
We collect health information in order to provide a health service.
3. Disclosure of personal and health information
3.1 Personal information
We may disclose personal information to:
(a) any entity to which we are authorised or required by law to disclose such information (for example, law enforcement agencies, various Federal, State or local government departments, the Courts);
(b) our employees, offices, insurers, professional advisors, contractors or service providers when reasonably necessary for the delivery of our services; and
(c) with consent, express or implied, to a third party.
3.2 Direct marketing
We may use personal information to provide clients and patients with information about our products, services and special offers from time to time, including marketing and promotional materials (i.e. upcoming events or special event packages).
Clients can opt out of receiving marketing or promotional material.
There may also be times when the law requires us to provide certain information to our clients and patients. We will continue to send this information even if an individual may have told us they do not wish to receive other types of information about our products and services
3.3 Health information
We may disclose your health information with your consent or in the event of a permitted health situation. We will take reasonable steps to ensure your information is de-identified, if possible, prior to disclosure.
4. Storage
We are committed to ensuring that personal and health information is secure. We have suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure information and protect it from misuse, interference, loss, modification, disclosure and unauthorised access.
Health information can only be accessed by our health professionals.
Credit card information is stored in an encrypted form.
The transmission and exchange of information to us is not our risk. We cannot guarantee the security of any information transmitted to us.
We will destroy or delete personal information from our systems when it is no longer required. However, we may be required by law to retain certain information for a set period of time. We will destroy or delete this information once this period of time has expired.
5. Accessing and correcting personal information
To effectively conduct our practice, it is important that the personal information we hold about patients is complete, accurate and up-to-date. We might ask patients to provide details of any changes in their personal information.
Clients can also ask us to correct information about them that they are aware is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.
Clients may request details of personal information we hold about them in accordance with the provisions of the Act. A small administrative fee might apply.
In certain circumstances under the APPs, we may not be required to provide patients with access to correct their personal information. If this occurs, we will provide the reason for our decision.
6. Online dealings
We seek to keep current with available security and encryption technology so as to maintain the effectiveness of our security systems. However, no transmission over the internet can be guaranteed as totally secure and accordingly, we cannot warrant or ensure the security of any information clients or users provide to us over the internet. Information is transmitted at the risk of the user.
Flourish Psychology and/or our contractors may collect certain information about website visitors. Examples of such information may include:
• Cookies – our website from time to time may use cookies to analyse website traffic and help us provide a better website visitor experience. Cookies may also be used to serve relevant ads to website visitors through third party services such as Google Adwords. We do not use cookies for collecting the personal information of website users or to track browsing habits and we do not try to identify every individual person browsing our website. If we use cookies it is to collect general statistical information about visitors to our websites, system administration of our web server, internal market research and to prepare aggregate reports.
• Site visit information – our website may collect general information about visitors including server addresses, dates and times of visits. We use this information in an anonymous, aggregated form for statistical purposes to assist us improve the quality of our website.
• Third party sites – our site may from time to time have links to other websites not owned or controlled by us. These links are for convenience only. Links to third party websites do not constitute our sponsorship, endorsement or approval of these websites. Flourish Psychology is not responsible for the privacy practices of other such websites. We encourage users to be aware when they leave our website, to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personal information.
We do not transmit personal information by e-mail externally unless we have consent (express or implied) to us doing so.
7. Complaints
If you wish to make a complaint about how Flourish Psychology has managed your personal information, please contact Dr Gabriel Roux, Managing Director of Flourish Psychology.
If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your complaint, you can lodge a complaint with the Australian Information Commissioner.
8. Updates and changes
We may change this policy in the future. We may modify this policy at any time, in our sole discretion. All modifications will be effective immediately upon our posting of our policy on our website. We encourage all users to check back from time to time to review our privacy policy.
