The Asthma Foundation of Victoria is committed to the protection of private information that it gathers from those who contact us for advice and education on asthma and linked conditions, members, donors, training program clients, website users, corporate sector clients, health professionals and other entities.

We acknowledge the trust that is given to us when we collect information from you and we will do all in our power to ensure that we honour your trust and protect your privacy. To do that, we will adopt the following principles.

COLLECTION OF INFORMATION

• We will only collect personal information from you when it is necessary for one or more of our legitimate services, functions or activities.
• The health information you give us will be used to provide you with the best possible information we have at our disposal to help you manage your asthma and linked conditions effectively.
• We will not collect personal information about you or your medical condition from anyone else but you or a responsible carer, unless consent is given by you.
• We will only collect information regarding children and young people from a parent, guardian, responsible carer or directly from the child or young person where that is appropriate.
• We will not use unlawful or unfair means to obtain information.

USE AND DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION

• The information we collect from you will be used to respond to your needs concerning your asthma and linked conditions or for other legitimate services, functions or activities conducted by the Asthma Foundation of Victoria.
• The information you give us may be used to generate statistics that will assist us to understand how people manage their asthma and linked conditions and to help us provide better services or resources. We will not personally identify any information used for statistical processing.
• We may contact you to see whether the information we provided was adequate and to ascertain whether any further support or information would help you. We may also ask you about our service delivery and how we may improve our profile and/or services and what your future needs may be.
• If you are not already a financial supporter of our work, we may invite you to make a contribution to the fight against asthma and linked conditions. However, financial support will not be a prerequisite for our support to you. You may request at any time to be excluded from any mail list including invitations to contribute to our work and we will honour that request.
• We will not sell, trade or distribute your contact details to any other person or organisation for purposes of direct marketing.
• The information we collect will not be disclosed to a third person or organisation, including your doctor, unless you ask us to do so, or give your consent to any request for transfer of the information. In the event that you are not able to give your consent, we will act on the advice of a responsible person who is caring for you.
• We will co-operate with requests from statutory or other bodies for information you have provided to us where the request is authorised by a relevant Federal or State Act.

DATA QUALITY

• We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that the information we collect is accurate, complete, up-to date and relevant to the functions of the Asthma Foundation of Victoria. Each time you contact us we will update your information.

DATA SECURITY

• We will ensure that only qualified and trained Asthma Foundation of Victoria staff and authorised volunteers can access your private information and we will destroy or remove personal identification from it when there is no longer any apparent use for it. If you ask us to do it, we will destroy or remove identification from your private information at any time.
• We will ensure that all of your private information, whether in hard copy or electronic versions, is held in a secure fashion.

OPENNESS

• We will provide you with a printed copy of our Privacy Policy any time you ask for it. The policy will also be available on our website and will be published from time to time in our Newsletter.
• We will tell you what information we hold about you, how we collected it and how we use it, upon request.

ACCESS AND CORRECTION

• You may have access to your information upon request and we will change any information you deem to be incorrect. Access will be subject to proof of identity and will be available from our registered office. We will not delete or change your records if we have received a request from statutory or other bodies for information you have provided to us.
• If you establish that any of your information is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, we will take all reasonable steps to correct the information.
• We will not provide you with access to information for another person without their consent or unless you can provide reasonable proof that you are acting as a responsible carer for that person.

IDENTIFIERS

• Where possible we will use a unique and personal identifier to distinguish your information. We will not disclose that identifier to any other person or organisation except under the circumstances mentioned above.
• We will not ask you for or use any other identifier issued to you by any other agency, organisation or government department.

ANONYMITY

• Unless there is a good practical or legal reason that requires identification, you will have the choice of remaining anonymous when providing information to us. In this case, the record may still be used for unidentified statistical data but we may not then be able to provide you with support information or follow up.

TRANSBORDER DATA FLOWS

• We will not transfer your information within or outside Australia without your consent or the consent of a responsible carer.

TRANSFER OR CLOSURE OF THE ASTHMA FOUNDATION OF VICTORIA’S BUSINESS

• If the Asthma Foundation of Victoria merges with or ceases to operate, we will make every effort to contact you to seek your views about your information before transferring or destroying your information.

MAKING INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO ANOTHER PROVIDER

• Upon request from you, we will make available information about you to another health provider.

SENSITIVE INFORMATION

• We will not collect personal information revealing ethnic or racial origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, health, disability or other sensitive information unless we are required to do so and we have your consent.
• We will not ask for sensitive information unless there is good reason to believe that these issues need to be considered to assist us to respond to your needs and give you the best information we have at our disposal.

INTERNET TRANSACTIONS AND ENQUIRIES

Collection of Click Stream and other information

• When you visit our website, our server logs the following information, which is provided by your browser. This information is logged for statistical purposes only:
• your server’s IP address or your personal IP address. These addresses are numbers unique to the machine through which you access the internet;
• the type of browser and operating system you are using;
• the address of the referring site, i.e. the previous site you visited;
• the date and time of your visit; and,
• the address of the pages accessed and the documents downloaded.
• We will not try to identify you or your browsing activities except, in the unlikely event of an investigation, where a law enforcement agency may exercise legal authority to inspect the service provider’s logs.

Cookies

• A cookie is a packet of information that allows the computer that houses our website (the server) to identify and interact more effectively with your computer. Our server generates a temporary cookie, which is used to keep track of the pages you have accessed whilst visiting our website. The cookie exists only for the time you are using our server. At the end of your interaction with us the cookie no longer exists on your computer and cannot be used for further identification or access to your machine.

• Our website may also store cookies on your web browser in order to improve service for you on a subsequent visit to our website. We may use a third-party to collect statistical data via cookies but that information will not be identified with you.

Links to other websites

• Our website contains links to other sites on the Internet. Those sites are not under our control and we cannot be held responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. Some sites may not be subject to Australian Privacy Law. We suggest that you review the privacy policy of each site before providing any response or information.

COMPLAINTS ABOUT PRIVACY

• If you think there has been a breach of your privacy by the Asthma Foundation of Victoria you have the right to make a complaint to The Asthma Foundation of Victoria.  In the first instance, your complaint should be addressed to the Privacy Officer at The Asthma Foundation of Victoria.  The Privacy Officer will investigate and respond to your complaint within an appropriate time.  If the matter cannot be satisfactorily resolved, you have the right to complain to the appropriate Privacy Commissioner for resolution.