Introduction

The Reflux Infants Support Association (RISA) Inc is a non-profit charity organisation offering counselling, information, education, advocacy and support services to the community and in particular to families who have babies and/or children who have been diagnosed with reflux or reflux disease and their associated complications. It is run by reflux families for the benefit of reflux families, and all position holders are volunteers. Through the provision of these support and education mechanisms, RISA gathers information from members and other people to enable the delivery of services and to improve the nature of these services. RISA understands individuals’ concerns regarding confidentiality and takes seriously its obligations in respect of all information it gathers. The Reflux Infants Support Association is committed to adhering to the Privacy Act 1988.

Privacy Policy Framework

This framework ensures the organisation including all its volunteers (with or without office bearing positions) collect, use, store, correct and disclose personal information in a manner that conforms to the Privacy Act 1988.

Privacy Policy

All personal information collected by RISA will comply with the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) as detailed below and as amended from time to time.

How & Why We Collect Personal Information

  1. Nature of Information:
    • The information we collect in most cases relates to our members and to non-members who contact us seeking information relevant to their situation but can relate to other parties with whom we deal.
    • Personal information is gathered for a range of purposes, including the provision of information; provision of support, the provision of services; the compilation of membership lists; and internal fundraising within the association.
    • In this policy, personal information means any information or opinion about an individual from which her/his identity is apparent or can reasonably be ascertained.
  2. Collection of Information:
    • In accordance with the NPPs, where practical, you may deal with us on an anonymous basis. However, as a provider of a wide range of services, we frequently find that it is necessary to collect personal information during the course of providing our services.
    • Personal information is collected directly from you when you provide this information verbally or in documents such as membership forms or conference registration forms.
    • When personal information is collected from you, you will be advised at the time of collection or as soon as practical after its collection as to the purpose of collection and the fact that you can gain access to the personal information to review and/or correct it.
  3. Sensitive Information:
    • As a provider of information and counselling services, we may need to collect personal health information or other sensitive information about you to provide our services to you. We will only ask you for information where we believe it is necessary for us to know that information in the course of providing our services.

What We Do With Your Information

You may request that your personal information not be used for the purpose of fundraising for the association by contacting RISA. In general, only volunteers with office-bearing positions may view your personal information. We will only grant access to parties other than our volunteers with office-bearing positions to view personal information where we believe that it is necessary and in your best interests for those people to view that personal information.

RISA will only disclose personal information to parties other than our volunteers with office-bearing positions if: that disclosure is required to give effect to the purpose for which we collected the personal information; you have consented to that disclosure; we believe that the disclosure may lessen a risk of harm to the health or safety of any person; we believe that unlawful activity is being undertaken and personal information is disclosed as part of our investigation into this activity; we are required by law to disclose this activity; the disclosure is required for the enforcement of a criminal law or a law imposing a pecuniary penalty or for the protection of public revenue, or the third party is RISA’s agent or contractor and is required by us to keep that personal information confidential and will only use that information for the purpose for which it is disclosed.

Quality & Security Of Personal Information

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that personal information is accurate and provide opportunities for individuals to update their personal information.

Personal information is stored by RISA in hard copy, on a computer or other electronic storage devices, in cloud storage or storage provided by social media websites used by RISA like Facebook. In the instance of Facebook, any personal information about members is restricted in closed, private groups to RISA executives and volunteers. RISA member group comments are only available to other RISA members by means of the privacy restrictions on those groups. Reasonable steps will be taken to ensure that hard copies of personal information and personal information stored on computers are secure.

We regularly delete, destroy or de-identify personal information if the information is no longer needed by us.

Openness

Contact RISA via the following details for any further information about our Privacy Policy. Further information on privacy can be obtained from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Phone: 07 3229 1090
Email: info@reflux.org.au
Address: PO Box 1598, Fortitude Valley QLD 4006

How To Access & Correct Your Personal Information

You can update your personal information at any time by contacting us at the above information. Access is generally granted within 30 days of that request.

We may impose a reasonable charge for access to cover administration costs.

A request by an individual to access their personal information may be withheld in a certain number of limited circumstances, as per the Privacy Act 1988.

Where RISA does withhold personal information, we may instead choose to give you a summary of that information.

Identifiers

RISA does not use any prohibited identifiers (for example tax files or health care card numbers).

Anonymity

You are able to access the RISA contact (telephone or email counselling) service anonymously if you wish. However personal information may be collected if you access other RISA services or activities.

Transborder Data Flows

Although it is not usual for RISA to transfer personal information overseas, if personal information is transferred overseas, we will wherever practical obtain your written consent before doing so. If obtaining your consent is not practical, then the information may still be transferred if, as part of the agreement for the transfer of that information, the other organisation agrees to comply with RISA’s privacy policy.

Modifications To This Document

RISA may modify this Privacy Policy and the way it handles personal information at any time at its sole discretion. Such modifications will be consistent with current privacy legislation.