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Privacy Policy

Key points

Inside Out Institute understands the importance to you of your personal information

  • This Privacy Policy sets out how and why we collect your personal information and the purposes for which it may be used. These depend on your reason for interacting with us, including whether you are seeking information or services from us; are a health professional or are looking to work with us
  • We will only disclose your personal information to others with your consent, unless we are otherwise required or permitted to do so by law
  • We do our best to ensure that your personal information is stored securely
  • We will not send you marketing material unless you ask us to
  • Please contact us at admin@insideoutinstitute.org.au if you have any comments, questions or complaints about how we handle your personal information

1. Policy statement

InsideOut Institute (InsideOut, we, us and our) is committed to managing and protecting the privacy of the personal information it collects and holds in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and other applicable privacy laws (including the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW)) (Privacy Laws).

The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to explain how we collect, hold and manage your personal information, as well as how you can contact us about the personal information we hold about you. Personal information is information that identifies you, or could reasonably identify you.

2. The kinds of personal information we collect

The typical scenarios in which we collect personal information include:

  • from people with eating disorders and their families, through our E-Clinic and other online services
  • from health professionals and researchers, through:
    • being listed on our Treatment Services Database
    • being a health professional or researcher in our professional network
    • attending our online or in person training, and
    • from applicants for employment (including the personal information of the applicant's references).

We may collect the following kinds of personal information about you:

  • people with an eating disorder and their friends and family, if they choose to provide that information to us: your email address (which may or may not reveal your identity), and information relevant to diagnosis, education and treatment, such as health history, family history, past and current treatments, lifestyle factors
  • health professionals and researchers: name and contact details, professional details, and other information useful to our having a professional relationship with you
  • where we take payments: billing and financial information, such as your banking or payment information, credit card number, cardholder name and expiration date
  • applicants for employment: your name and contact details, application for employment, and information relevant to assessing you as an applicant, such as work history and references
  • everyone: other personal information that you disclose to us.

3. Our purposes in handling your personal information

We collect, hold, and handle your personal information for the following purposes:

  • people with an eating disorder and their friends and family: to provide information, education and training to you
    • health professionals and researchers: to help you participate in our professional network; and for research, education and training
  • applicants for employment: to assess your suitability to work with us
  • donors and other supporters: to engage with you
  • to provide you with services you have requested
  • to communicate with related organisations, such as the University of Sydney, NSW Ministry of Health, and the Department of Veterans' Affairs
  • where you have given your consent, for promotional purposes, including the circulation of a periodic newsletter
  • as permitted or required by law
  • as otherwise necessary to manage our organisation, including assessing insurance requirements, conducting audits, and undertaking accreditation processes.

We may also de-identify your personal information, which we may use as is or which we may aggregate with other de-identified data, for example, for research or reporting purposes.

4. Disclosing your personal information

With your consent to the disclosure, InsideOut may disclose your personal information to:

  • health professionals (such as psychologists, dietitians and general practitioners)
  • government departments responsible for health, aged care and disability
  • your relatives, friends and/or guardians
  • research institutions and sponsors with which InsideOut collaborates
  • fundraising institutions associated with InsideOut, but only where you have also consented to your information being disclosed for fundraising purposes
  • anyone authorised by you to receive your personal information, and
  • anyone InsideOut is required by law to disclose your personal information to.

We also may disclose your personal information to our third party service providers, who are under a duty of confidentiality.

Inside Out may also disclose your personal information where we are required or permitted by law to do so.

5. Marketing

We may use your personal information to promote products and services to you, including by email, but only where you have consented to receive just marketing materials. If you no longer wish to receive this information, please contact us by using the contact details in clause 8, or click the 'opt out' link at the bottom of any promotional email that you receive. We will never sell your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

6. Security

We seek to ensure that the personal information we handle is accurate, complete and up to date, and is stored securely whether in hard copy or electronic form.

We strive to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of your personal information, and we seek to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

There are ways you can help maintain the privacy of your personal information, such as:

  • always closing your browser when you have finished your user session
  • always ensuring others cannot access your personal information and emails if you use a public computer, and
  • never disclosing your user name and password to others.

7. Use of cookies

A 'cookie' is a small data file placed on your machine or device which lets InsideOut identify and interact more effectively with your computer.

We use cookies to facilitate your ongoing access to and use of our website, as well as to customise our website to the needs of our users. If you do not want your information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to deny or accept the cookie feature. However, cookies may be necessary to provide you with some parts of the website, such as our E-Clinic Platform and E-Clinic Services.

8. Accessing, correcting and updating your personal information

You may request access to, or correction of the personal information which we hold about you. If you make a request, we will ask you to verify your identity and specify the information you require.

You can contact InsideOut about your personal information by calling us on (02) 8627 5690 or emailing us on admin@insideoutinstitute.org.au.

We will comply with your request for access or correction, unless we are legally required or authorised to do otherwise. We may seek to recover reasonable costs incurred for providing you with access to any of the personal information about you held by us.

9. Complaints

If you have a complaint about InsideOut's information handling practices or consider we have breached your privacy, you should first lodge a complaint with InsideOut (via the contact details in clause 8).

InsideOut aims to deal with all complaints in a fair and efficient manner. After receiving a complaint, we may investigate the complaint by requesting further information from you and/or conducting internal discussions. We will notify you of the results of such investigation. If we conclude that our handling of your personal information is in breach of the Privacy Laws, we will remedy the breach as soon as reasonably practicable.

If you are unsatisfied with our handling of your complaint, you may contact the Privacy Commissioner at:

Office of Australian Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001

1300 363 992 or via email at enquiries@oaic.gov.au