1. We respect your privacy

1.1 Mary’s House Services Limited (ABN 43 606 187 839) (Mary’s House Services, we, us and our) is committed to protecting and upholding the privacy and confidentiality of its clients, website users and other individuals who interact with us. We adhere to the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act).

1.2 This policy sets out:

(a) the way we collect, store, use, disclose and otherwise handle your personal information;
(b) how we protect your personal information; and
(c) your rights in relation to your personal information.

2. Collection of your personal information

2.1 Mary’s House Services will, from time to time, collect and store personal information of its clients, website users and other individuals who interact with us. We aim to only collect personal information that is reasonably required for our functions and activities.

2.2 The type of personal information collected by Mary’s House Services will depend upon the reason for its collection but may include:

(a) name;
(b) contact details;
(c) date of birth;
(d) nationality;
(e) disability status;
(f) income and financial details;
(g) health details;
(h) experience of domestic and family violence
(i) criminal history; and
(j) documents relating to prospective employees e.g. resume.

2.3 Mary’s House Services collects sensitive information where this is reasonably necessary for our functions and activities. We may collect your sensitive information where you provide your consent or where such collection is required or permitted by law.

2.4 If you choose not to provide all the personal information that Mary’s House Services requests, it may limit how we are able to interact with you and may prevent us from employing you or prevent us from providing domestic and family violence services to you.

3. How we collect and hold your personal information

3.1 Mary’s House Services collects personal information from you in a variety of ways, including when you access and use the Mary’s House Services’ website, as part of employment processes, during conversations with you, when you complete our forms or from relevant third parties such as healthcare professionals and government agencies. We may also collect your personal information from other third parties, for example from law enforcement agencies, government departments and non-government organisations.

3.2 For information on how we hold your personal information, see section 6 of this policy.

4. Purposes of collection, storage and use for your personal information

4.1 Mary’s House Services may collect, hold and use your personal information:

(a) to provide you with our domestic and family violence services (this may include providing services to children in your care and referring you to relevant third parties for specialist services);(b) to communicate with you e.g. responding to your query;
(c) to consider a job application from you;
(d) for our internal business purposes e.g. administration purposes; and
(e) as required or permitted by law.

4.2 We will not use personal information for a purpose other than the purpose for which we collected it:

(a) unless you have consented to such use; or
(b) such use is directly related to the purpose for which consent was given, and you would reasonably expect us to use the information for this different purpose; or
(c) we are required or permitted by law to do so.

5. Disclosure of your personal information

5.1 We may disclose your personal information to other service providers, law enforcement agencies, government departments and non-government organisations, when reasonably necessary for any of the purposes set out in Section 4 of this policy.

5.2 We may, from time to time, need to disclose personal information to comply with a legal requirement such as a law, regulation, court order, subpoena or warrant in the course of a legal proceeding or in response to a law enforcement agency request. For example, we have legal obligations under other legislation, including the Domestic Violence Sharing Protocol (Part 13A of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW) and the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 (NSW) and we may share your personal information in accordance with these obligations.

5.3 We will not disclose your personal information for a purpose other than the purposes for which we collected it unless you have:

(a) consented to such disclosure; or
(b) such disclosure is directly related to the purpose for which consent was given, and you would reasonably expect us to disclose the information for this different purpose; or
(c) we are required or permitted by law to do so.

5.4 We do not disclose personal information to overseas entities. However, Mary’s House Services does use cloud-based software to store donor data, and in some instances, the datacentre may be located overseas in the United States, Canada or the Netherlands.

6. Security of your personal information

6.1 Personal information may be collected in hard copy and electronic form. Mary’s House Services holds hard copy records in secure areas. Mary’s House Services holds client information in a secure client information management system. Electronic records are held on a secure database with comprehensive security safeguards.

6.2 We will destroy or de-identify your personal information if we no longer need it for the purposes for which it was collected, unless we are authorised or required by law to retain the information. For example, the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW) and the Children (Education and Care Services) National Law Act 2010 (NSW) require us to retain certain health information.

6.3 The transmission and exchange of information over the internet is carried out at your own risk. We cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us or receive from us over the internet.

7. Access to and correction of your personal information

7.1 You are entitled to request access to your personal information that is held by Mary’s House Services.

7.2 You also have the right to request the correction of your personal information. Where you inform Mary’s House Services that information held about you is inaccurate, out‐of‐date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, we will review the request and if appropriate, will correct the information. We may need to verify your identity before actioning a request.

7.3 You can request access to, or correction of your personal information held by Mary’s House Services by contacting the staff member with whom you have had contact or by using the contact details at Section 8 of this Privacy Policy. We will respond to your request for access or correction within a reasonable period, usually within 30 days.

7.4 If Mary’s House Services corrects personal information about you that we previously disclosed to another entity subject to the APPs (APP entity) and you ask us to notify that other APP entity of the correction, we must take reasonable steps to notify that APP entity unless it is impracticable or unlawful to do so.

7.5 We reserve the right to refuse to provide you with access to your personal information in certain circumstances set out in the Privacy Act. We may also refuse to make a requested amendment to your personal information. If we refuse to provide access to, or allow correction of your personal information, we will notify you in writing setting out a written explanation of the reasons for the refusal (unless unreasonable to do so) and inform you of the mechanisms to complain about the refusal.

8. Complaints about privacy

8.1 If you have any complaints about our privacy practices, please feel free to provide details of your complaints to our Privacy Officer, by phone on 02 8937 2094 and ask for the Operation Manager or contact us by email at corporate@maryshouse.org.au. We take complaints very seriously and will respond within a reasonable time (usually 30 days) after receiving written notice of your complaint.

8.2 If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you can make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by phone on 1300 363 992 or at www.oaic.gov.au.

9. Changes to Privacy Policy

9.1 Please be aware that we may change this Privacy Policy in the future. We may modify this Policy at any time and all modifications will be effective immediately upon our posting of the modifications on our website. Please check back from time to time to review our Privacy Policy.

10. Website

10.1 When you visit our website, we may collect your personal information. For example, we may need to collect such information to provide you with further services or to answer or forward any requests or enquiries. This information is used so that we can provide and improve our services.

10.2 Cookies are data that a website transfers to an individual’s hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Cookies, which are industry standard and are used by most websites, including those operated by us, can facilitate a user’s ongoing access to and use of a site. They allow us to customise the website to your needs. If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to deny or accept the cookie feature.

10.3 The Mary’s House Services website uses Google Analytics. This is a service which sends website traffic data to Google servers in the United States. You can opt out of Google Analytics if you disable or refuse cookies, disable JavaScript, or use the opt-out service provided by Google.