Privacy Policy

St Pat’s takes your privacy seriously

The information St Patrick’s Community Support Centre (St Pat’s) collects, and the way we use it, is in accordance with the Privacy Act13 Australian Privacy Principles, and Notifiable Data Breach Scheme.

What information do we collect?

We will always notify you either at the time, or before, we collect information. We will only collect information that is necessary for, or directly related to St Pat’s work. Where information is collected for research and /or evaluation purposes, additional consents will be sought. Personal information will be collected from the individual directly (or if information is received by referrals, the information will be checked with the client). In addition, staff will only collect sensitive information with the individual’s informed consent.

To provide informed consent, services users and residents need to understand:

  • What services St Pat’s can provide
  • Conditions for accessing St Pat’s services, including clients’ rights and responsibilities
  • How personal information is managed by St Pat’s
  • The extent and limits of client confidentiality
  • The right to change and withdraw consent at any time, and
  • What happens when you withdraw consent

Informed consent

Consent and confidentiality are fundamental rights that must be available to all people accessing services. Staff obtain informed consent before collecting information, disclosing personal information, or providing services.

When do we use or disclose personal information?

Personal information about an individual that is collected for one purpose (e.g., engagement in a St Pat’s program, making a complaint, or a job application) must not be used or disclosed for another purpose (e.g., soliciting donations), except when the individual would reasonably expect it or when they provide consent. When personal information is used or disclosed a written note of the use or disclosure must be made in the individual’s record. Any staff member involved in making this disclosure will not make the decision to do so alone, but will liaise with their line manager, on-call or other senior staff member.

Disclosure of personal information about an individual is permitted when:

  • There is a serious and imminent threat to an individual’s or other’s life, health, or safety
  • The disclosure is authorised or required by law (please refer to Responding to Subpoenas and External Requests for Information); or
  • The disclosure relates to significant criminal behaviour, and is made to authorities with responsibility for dealing with such behaviour, and disclosure is not outweighed by other privacy principles

Access to personal information

St Pat’s provides access to an individual’s personal information, on request, unless an exception applies. St Pat’s must be satisfied that a request for personal information is made by the individual concerned, or by another person who is authorised to make a request on their behalf (e.g. a legal guardian or authorised agent). All requests to access personal information will be responded to within 30 calendar days of receiving the request. If there is a delay for any reason, St Pat’s must contact the individual to explain the delay and provide an expected timeframe for finalising the request. In some cases, St Pat’s may decline access to information as outlined in the Australian Privacy Principles. In these cases St Pat’s must provide the individual with a written notice that sets out the reasons for the refusal and the complaint mechanisms available to the individual.

Concerned about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles?

We are committed to protecting your privacy and upholding the Australian Privacy Principles. If you believe we have breached your privacy, please contact us as soon as possible or lodge a formal complaint. We take all complaints very seriously.

Website Privacy and Data Collection

Our website address is: https://stpats.com.au.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who we share your data with

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where your data is sent

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

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