Privacy

Emerge women & children’s support network values the privacy of every individual’s personal information and health information.

Emerge women & children’s support network is committed to protecting the information it collects and uses by compliance with its obligations under the Information Privacy Act 2000 (Vic) and the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic). Protecting your privacy and your personal and health information is an important aspect of the way we create, organise and implement our activities online and offline.

This privacy statement

This Website Privacy Statement applies to this website which is operated by emerge women & children’s support network under the domain name www.emergesupport.org.au. This Website Privacy Statement explains how your personal information (being information capable of identifying you as an individual) will be treated as you access and interact with this website. The practices outlined in this Website Privacy Statement are subject to any rights we may have to handle personal information in accordance with law.

Collection of your personal information

The personal information we collect via this website includes:

• The content of any electronic forms you submit via this website, requesting us to provide services or information, or take actions

• Information submitted if you participate in an online survey any messages or comments you submit to us via this website or to email addresses displayed on this website, which may include personal information such as name, email address and telephone number.

Use and disclosure of your personal information

In addition to providing our services to you and carrying out your requests, we may use or disclose personal information that we collect about you for purposes including the following:

• For the purpose that we have collected the information

• Purposes related to our research, planning, product and service development, security and testing

• Purposes connected with the operation, administration, development or enhancement of this website

• Where we suspect that fraud or unlawful activity has been, is being or may be engaged in

• Any other purposes required or authorised by law

We may share personal information within emerge and with third parties. The types of third parties to whom we may disclose that personal information includes our service providers who assist us in providing this website and our products and services such as organisations who provide archival, auditing, professional advisory, banking, mailhouse, delivery, recruitment, call centre, technology, research, utility and security services. We may also disclose your personal information to third parties acting on your behalf, for example your solicitor or interpreter.

If you have made an online application, your application will be forwarded to the appropriate emerge unit or agency and any other third parties to whom your application relates or who can assist in processing your application.

If you make a payment using this website, we may process your payment with the assistance of a reputable third party electronic payments service provider and present you with an online receipt for your records.

Security

We have implemented technology and security policies, rules and measures to protect the personal information that we have under our control. However, you should be aware that there are risks in transmitting information across the internet. So while we strive to protect such information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information transmitted to us online and individuals do so at their own risk. Once any personal information comes into our possession, we will take reasonable steps to protect that information from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. If you are concerned about conveying sensitive material to us over the internet, you might prefer to contact us by telephone or mail. We will remove personal information from our system where it is no longer required (except where archiving is required).

If you make an online application or another payment transaction using this website, or via www.emergesupport.org.au, we take additional steps to protect the security of your personal information, such as strong 128-bit SSL encryption. Before using these facilities, you should ensure that you are using a web browser that supports 128-bit encryption. In many web browsers, you can confirm that your session is encrypted by the appearance of a locked padlock symbol at the foot of the browser.

Feedback form, information request form and email

We may preserve the content of any feedback form, information request form, email or other electronic message that we receive. Any personal information contained in that message will only be used or disclosed in ways set out in this Website Privacy Statement. We will not use that information to add you to a mailing list without your consent.

Links to external websites

This Website Privacy Statement does not extend beyond this website. When following links to other sites from this website, we recommend that you read the privacy statement of that site to familiarise yourself with its privacy practices.

Access and correction

To request access to or correction of your personal information held by emerge, please contact us to find out about access and correction procedures.

It is our policy in the Department of Justice that where appropriate you should be able to request access to your personal information directly, without the need to make a formal application under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic). However, there are situations where it will not be appropriate to provide direct access to information, and you will be required to make an FOI application. (For example, where providing direct access would compromise the privacy of another person).

For information on making an FOI application please visit www.foi.vic.gov.au for further information or contact:

Department of Justice

Freedom of Information Officer
GPO BOX 4356 QQ
121 Exhibition St
Melbourne VIC 3001
Tel: 03 8684 0063
Email: foi@justice.vic.gov.au