This Privacy Policy explains how Justice Connect (ABN 54 206 789 276) collects, uses, discloses and otherwise handles personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) which are contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act).
For the purposes of this policy, ‘personal information’ means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.
If you have any questions or feedback about this policy or the way in which Justice Connect handles personal information you can contact us on the details below. You can also request a hard copy of this policy using the details below.
Privacy Officer
Justice Connect
Mail: PO Box 16013, Collins Street West, Melbourne, 8007
Email: privacy@justiceconnect.org.au
Telephone: +61 3 8636 4400
Facsimile: +61 3 8638 4455
The types of personal information that we collect about you will depend on the type of dealings you have with us. For example, if you:
Some personal information, such as information relating to racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs or affiliations, health information (including mental health information and information about a disability), genetic information and whether or not you have a criminal record is sensitive and requires a higher level of protection under the Privacy Act. We may collect your sensitive information when we have your consent and when the collection is reasonably necessary for us to carry out one or more of our functions or activities.
Sensitive information is generally relevant to an assessment of whether a person is eligible for our legal services, and is relevant for the delivery of legal services.
For many of our legal services for individuals, the personal circumstances of the individual are relevant to assessing whether that person falls within the eligibility criteria of that service. These services will need to collect information that is relevant to the eligibility criteria to make an assessment about whether a person is eligible to receive assistance or not. This might include information about whether a person has a mental illness, disability or substance abuse problem.
In some circumstances we allow individuals the option of not identifying themselves, or of using a pseudonym, when dealing with us (for example, when viewing our website or making general phone queries). Donations may also be made anonymously, but in this case Justice Connect may not be able to issue a tax-deductible receipt.
The nature of the business carried on by Justice Connect means that, generally, it is not possible for us to provide services to our clients or deal with witnesses or other individuals in an anonymous way.
We collect personal information in a number of ways, including:
The main purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information are set out below.
Direct marketing is the promotion of goods and services directly to you including through emails, SMS, phone calls and the post. We will only send you direct marketing materials if you would reasonably expect to receive them or you have consented. If it is impractical to gain your consent, we will always provide a simple means for you to request not to receive the material (‘opting out’). We will not use your sensitive information for the purposes of direct marketing unless you have given us prior consent.
You can opt out of receiving marketing communications from us by:
The nature of the services provided by Justice Connect means that it is often necessary for us to disclose your personal information to other parties. We will ordinarily let you know who we will disclose your personal information to when we collect the information from you (unless there are practical reasons for not informing you).
Common third parties we might need to disclose your personal information to include:
In the case of these contracted service providers, we may disclose personal information to the service provider and the service provider may in turn provide us with personal information collected from you in the course of providing the relevant products or services
We may disclose personal information to our contracted information technology service providers that are hosted off-shore.
We hold personal information in both hard copy and electronic formats. Paper files are stored in secure cabinets onsite. They may also be archived in boxes and stored offsite in secure facilities.
If you are a client, we will return any of your original documents that we have to you when your matter has been finalised. Copies of your documents will remain on your file with us and will generally be kept for 7 years after the date that your file has been closed.
The security of your personal information is important to us and we use the recommended industry standards when storing and dealing with your personal information. We use a secure server using the latest 128-bit SSL (secure sockets layer) encryption technology to process any financial transactions.
The steps we take to secure the personal information we hold include:
While Justice Connect strives to protect the personal information and privacy of users of our website, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you disclose online and you disclose that information at your own risk. If you are concerned about sending your information over the internet, you can contact Justice Connect by telephone or post (details under ‘Contacting Us’).
You can also help to protect the privacy of your personal information by letting us know as soon as possible if you become aware of any security breach.
Links to third party websites that are not operated or controlled by Justice Connect are provided for your convenience. Justice Connect is not responsible for the privacy or security practices of those websites. Third party websites should have their own privacy and security policies, which we encourage you to read before supplying any personal information to them.
We will take reasonable steps to provide you with access to your personal information. We may however charge a fee to cover our reasonable costs of locating the information and providing it to you.
We will take reasonable steps to correct your personal information if we are satisfied that it is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. If we have provided your personal information to third parties we will also notify them of the correction if you ask us to do so, unless it is impracticable or unlawful.
Requests to access and correct your information should be made by email, post or phone using the details provided under the ‘Contacting Us’ heading. Note that we will need to verify your identity before processing your request. We will endeavour to respond to your request within 30 days.
If we do not agree with your request to access or correct your information, we will provide you with written reasons for our decision and available complaint mechanisms.
If you have a complaint about how Justice Connect has collected or handled your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer using the details provided under the heading ‘Contacting Us.’
We will ask you to complete a Privacy Complaint Form, which provides us with the details we need from you to assess your complaint. We can assist you with completing the Form if required.
We will endeavour to respond to your complaint within 30 days of receipt of the Privacy Complaint Form (while complex cases may take longer to resolve, we will keep you updated on the progress of your complaint).
If you are unhappy with our response, you can refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or, in some instances, other regulatory bodies, such as the Victorian Privacy Commissioner, the New South Wales Privacy Commissioner or the Victorian Health Services Commissioner.
Updated 7 September 2017