We understand the importance placed on the privacy of your personal information. In order to protect your right to privacy, we adhere to our Privacy Policy, reviewed regularly for good governance and have developed this document to ensure you are aware of our vigilance in protecting your privacy.

This document explains:

how we collect and use your personal information;

your right of access to your personal information;

your right to inspect and, where necessary, correct personal information that we hold about you;

your right to have your privacy complaints investigated and resolved; and

your right to have your personal information protected from misuse or unauthorised access.

We take reasonable steps to protect the privacy of the personal information that we collect and use. Our Privacy Policy determines our standard and applies to all personal information consumers of our service provide us with and all personal information that is collected by us. This document does not apply to our employees who provide us with their personal information.

What is personal information?

Personal information is any information that can be used to identify you. This includes any personal information or information and opinions relating to service provision for you, whether true or not, no matter how the information or opinions are recorded.

Why do we collect personal information?

We collect your personal information in order to provide you with and enhance our services, or to give access to or improve functionality of our service provision.

We also collect personal information for the following purposes:

to inform you of matters about which we believe you may have an interest;

as you are a user of our services, to notify you of your pickup times, booking confirmations, etc.

statistics and journey information that is provided to our funding bodies to notify you of our service offerings from time to time.

What happens if you choose not to provide your personal information?

You are not obliged to give us your personal information. However, if you choose not to provide us with your personal details we may not be able to provide our services to you.

What personal information do we collect and how do we use it?

The personal information that we collect and hold usually falls into the following categories:

information collected and collated from publicly available sources, including social media, publicly available data bases, third party sources and referees, personal contacts and other legitimate aged care providers when co-ordinated service provision is required;

when you visit the publicly available parts of our Website, we or the Website Hosting Provider used by us may collect your IP address, your top-level domain name, the date and time of your visit, the pages you access, the previous website you visited and the type of web browser you use;

we may record your e-mail address, name, address, date of birth and other personal details if you provide them to us, send us a message or apply to use our services;

if you apply to access certain areas of our Website or you apply to use our services we may ask you to register your personal details with us. For example, we may collect your name, your telephone number, personal interests, memberships, and other information that assists us in identifying services that could be of interest to you;

We will not use your personal information for any purpose which is not related to services we provide, or may offer to you, or to the functionality of our Website. We will not use your personal information in a manner contrary to our policy or this document.

We may use your personal information for the purpose of providing or potentially offering our services, providing information about our services, performing our administrative and marketing operations, complying with legislative and regulatory requirements, conducting market research or customer satisfaction research and identifying services that may be of interest to you.

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information that we hold is accurate and up to date. If you feel that information about you is not accurate or your details have or are about to change, please inform us and, upon verification, we will correct or update your personal information (in the manner we describe below).

How do we collect personal information?

We begin collecting personal information about you from authorised third party sources such as My Aged Care, upon receipt of your referral to us, or your contacts or networks if they make legitimate enquiries on your behalf. If we collect information about you in this way, and you are a consumer or a potential consumer to whom we have offered our services, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are aware of the purposes for which we are collecting your personal information and the organisations to which we might disclose your information, subject to any exceptions under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

When do we disclose your personal information?

We will use and disclose information internally for the primary purpose for which it was collected: provision of community transport. We may also use or disclose personal information for purposes that are related or ancillary to the main reasons we collect it. For example, we may share portions of your personal information for the purpose of providing you with information about other services available to you if you require our assistance yet we will not transfer personal information to another Service Provider unless we have your permission.

We may also be required, by law, to disclose personal information to law enforcement officers or other persons.

By our Funding Agreements with State and/or Commonwealth departments, we are also bound to disclose some personal information about you and the community transport services you receive. Such information is required to satisfy HKCT’s legitimate use of Government funds for which we are contracted and includes data provided for statistical analysis and business analysis by those departments.

We also engage third-party contractors to perform services and provide IT systems for us, which may involve the contractor access or handling personal information we hold. In these circumstances we prohibit the third-party contractor from using personal information about you except for the specific purpose for which they must handle your information.

We never disclose personal information that we collect to a third party for the purpose of Direct Marketing or allowing them to direct market their products and services.

If you use our Website or any online facility we confirm that we may utilise tracking software and cookies. A cookie will allow a Website to recognise a user’s device. A cookie will contain the name of the internet location (the domain) from which the cookie has come from and the lifetime of the cookie (a cookie will usually expire after a certain period of time).

Access to your personal information

You have a right to access your personal information, subject to certain exceptions provided for in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

We will provide access by allowing you to inspect, take notes of or receive copies or print outs of the personal information that we hold about you. To obtain access please make your request in writing to our General Manager, by email to: [email protected] or by mail to: HKCT PO Box 698, Turramurra NSW 2074.

For security reasons you are required to put your request in writing and provide proof of your identity before receiving access. This is necessary to ensure that personal information is provided only to the correct individual and that the privacy of others is not undermined.

When will access be denied?

Access will be denied if:

the request does not relate to the personal information of the person making the request;

providing access would pose a serious and imminent threat to the life or health of a person;

providing access would create an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others;

the request is frivolous or vexatious;

the request relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings;

the information is subject to legal professional privilege;

providing access would prejudice negotiations with the individual making the request;

access would be unlawful;

denial of access is authorised or required by law;

access would prejudice law enforcement activities;

access discloses ‘commercially sensitive’ decision making processes or information; or

any other reason that is provided for in the Privacy Principles or the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

If we deny access to information we will give you our reasons for denying access.

Timing

We will take all reasonable steps to provide you with access to the information requested within 14 days of your request. In situations where the request is complicated or requires access to a large volume of information, we will provide access to the information requested within 30 days.

Costs and charges

We may charge you a fee to reimburse us for the costs we incur relating to your request for access to information. However, no fees or charges apply to any request to add, change or delete your personal information; nor for correcting the information.

Security of your information

We take all reasonable steps to secure your personal information. As most information is electronic data information, our IT systems are protected by multiple layers of security measures and access to information and databases is restricted to password access by our administration staff and IT contractor that need access to the information in order to perform their duties. Service delivery staff only have access to basic personal information, necessary to provide a safe service to you.

Complaints

Where there is a dispute about your right of access to information, or about any aspect of this Privacy Statement, please contact our General Manager: telephone 9983 1611
or via email: [email protected]
or post to: 7 Gilroy Road, Turramurra NSW 2074 or PO Box 698, Turramurra NSW 2074.