Gidget Foundation Australia is not able to provide crisis support.

Please refer to the below support options:
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If you need urgent medical help please call 000
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The PANDA National Helpline is available
Mon-Fri 9am-7:30pm 1300 726 306
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For 24 hour crisis support please call Lifeline 13 11 14

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Privacy Policy

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Privacy Policy

About this privacy policy

At Gidget Foundation Australia ABN 52 160 202 960 (Gidget, we, our, us), we value and respect your privacy and take the protection of your personal information seriously.

We have prepared this privacy policy to inform you of the personal information we collect and hold about you, and how we use that information. This privacy policy also provides information about your privacy rights as an individual and how to contact us if you have any privacy concerns.

This privacy policy may change from time to time and it is therefore important that you review it regularly.

What personal information do we collect and handle?

Personal information is any information or opinion (whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not) about you as an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.

The types of personal information we collect and handle may include, but are not limited to:

  • contact information, such as your name, postal and/or home address, telephone number and email address;
  • your bank account and credit card details;
  • photographs, if you provide us with a case study or if you attend one of our events;
  • information you provide to us through surveys;
  • if you are a client or prospective client, your Medicare details, date of birth, gender, marital status and emergency contact details; and
  • if you apply to be a volunteer, employee or a contractor, your qualifications, skills, experience, character, screening checks and employment history.

We may also collect ‘sensitive information’. Sensitive information is a special subset of personal information which is generally afforded greater protections under the Australian Privacy Act. The types of sensitive information we sometimes collect include:

  • information about your health such as your current and past medical history, particularly if you are receiving or seeking counselling or other medical services so that we can ensure you are receiving quality health services or if you have submitted a case study to us;
  • for clients and prospective clients, information about your racial or ethnic origin (this can be relevant to risk of perinatal anxiety and depression); and
  • criminal records and related information (typically in the context of performing a background check when considering an application to become a volunteer, employee or contractor).

In addition to the personal and sensitive information listed above, we may also collect additional personal and sensitive information that you provide directly to us during, or in connection with the provision of counselling and related services.

As noted above, we may feature photographs of various individuals on our website. These photographs are taken and displayed on our website with the permission of the individuals involved. If you are in one or more of these photos and would like those photos removed, please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact details below.

Some of the personal information we collect is required by Australian law, including Australian tax laws such as the Income Tax Assessment Act, child protection laws such as the Child Protection (Working with Children) Act and occupational health and safety and workers compensation acts.

How do we collect your personal information?

We collect personal information through various avenues, including:

  1. information you provide to us directly, for example:
  2. when you communicate or interact with us by telephone, email, online (including through our website and our social media channels), via our telehealth service or in person;
  3. when you complete a form or a survey;
  4. when you provide us with a case study;
  5. when you complete a client registration form prior to receiving medical services from us;
  6. information you provide to us during attendance at our events;
  7. information from third parties, including:
  8. our sponsors;
  9. our suppliers and other third parties who provide services to us; and
  10. hospitals and health care providers (if they have your consent or are otherwise authorised to provide your information to us).

You must only provide us with the personal information of someone else if you have that person’s consent to do so.

Why do we collect your personal information?

We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information primarily, so that we can provide you with psychological and emotional support during pregnancy and early parenthood. However, we may also collect your personal information for related reasons, including:

  • providing our services to you, this includes providing you with counselling and emotional support services, booking appointments and processing payments for services rendered;
  • developing our services to ensure we are providing the highest levels of care;
  • to respond to your comments or questions;
  • verifying your identity and information;
  • administrative purposes including research, planning, campaign and service development, record-keeping and internal reporting;
  • assessing, training, working with and managing our staff, volunteers, and contractors (including processing job applications);
  • collecting aggregated data, and conducting surveys, about the community;
  • with your prior consent, publishing case studies about you in relation to our services;
  • to show your name and the amount of any donation or sponsorship you may make on our website (unless you choose a private or anonymous donation);
  • to enable us to customise the content you may receive on us and for marketing purposes, including to help us identify likeminded people through social media platforms; and
    to comply with applicable laws and regulations.

We may from time to time use de-identified and anonymised information to obtain funding grants and philanthropic support, for research purposes and for independent evaluations of our services and activities. We will not disclose your identity to unauthorised persons, and we will never sell your personal information or sensitive information under any circumstances.

Who might we disclose your personal information to?

We may disclose your personal information to various third parties for any of the purposes identified above. The types of third parties with whom we exchange personal information include:

  • our service providers, including providers of campaign, promotion, accounting, auditing, legal, banking, payment, delivery, data processing, data analysis, document management, information broking,
  • research, investigation, recruitment, insurance, superannuation, payroll, training and technology services;
  • for people who work with us, or apply to work with us, referees and screening check providers (e.g. for background, identity, eligibility to work, vocational suitability, health and criminal record checks);
  • with your prior consent, we may provide your personal information to journalists and other media representatives if you have agreed to share your experiences;
  • Australian Government Department of Health and state and territory health departments/agencies for reporting and compliance purposes*;
  • various third party suppliers and partners, which provide services and support for our programs and operations;
  • your organisation and representatives;
  • to law enforcement agencies and other organisations where required or permitted by law;
  • our marketing and advertising partners to deliver promotional and relevant content to you by using interest and preference based advertising, or through more generic marketing channels;
  • service providers engaged by us from time to time, to contact you to request your feedback on our services to monitor patient satisfaction and for quality assurance activities;
  • health care providers involved in your ongoing care or to provide treatment, including, your general practitioner, home service provider, district health nurse, psychiatrist or mental health crisis team;
  • Sonder, to provide you with the option to have free access to the 24/7 support app. See Sonder’s Privacy Policy for more information about Sonder’s handling of personal information. If you do not want Sonder to hold personal information provided by us, please contact us as set out below.

Overseas disclosures

Some of these third parties we share your personal information either provide their services from, or are located outside of, Australia. Your personal information, therefore, may be subject to privacy laws that are different from those in Australia. The countries in which these organisations are located will vary, but, in the course of our business operations, we generally disclose personal information to organisations located in Australia, Japan, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, The United Kingdom, Germany and the United States. Such transfers are made in order to provide the services and carry out the activities specified in this privacy policy.

What if we can’t collect your personal information?

If you do not provide us with the personal information we need, some or all of the following may occur:

  • we may not be able to provide you with our services, including any psychological and emotional support you may request;
  • we may not be able to consider your application to be a Gidget employee, contractor, supplier or volunteer; and
  • we may not be able to respond to your requests for information.

Visitors to our website

To help improve the service we provide through our website, certain information is collected from your browser. This information is collected as statistical information and includes the IP address, browser type, language and access times. This website also uses cookies to track pages visited and information accessed within our website. This information is for statistical reference and site analysis only.
In many cases, the tools used on our website record information in a way that does not identify you as an individual. In other cases, information may be personal information in which case this privacy policy will apply. For example, we collect personal information if you follow us through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram or contact us through our site or subscribe to our e-newsletter.

Our website may also use third party website tools from time to time, for example Google Analytics and online survey tools. For more about how Google collects and processes data, please see Google’s privacy policy and their information at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

How do we protect your personal information?

We take all reasonable steps to keep personal information protected from loss, interference, misuse or unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These steps may include access controls, encryption, and secure premises. We store personal information in both physical and electronic form, sometimes with the assistance of third parties such as data hosting providers.

Direct marketing communications

From time to time we may send you direct marketing communications regarding our services, programs, events, volunteering opportunities and fundraising events.

We may contact you by electronic messages (e.g. email), online (e.g. through our website or our social media channels), by mail, and by other means, unless you opt out or we are subject to legal restrictions. You may opt-out of marketing communications, by contacting us using the contact details below.

How can you access and correct your personal information?

The accuracy of the personal information we hold and use is important to us. We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we handle is accurate, complete and up-to-date. To help us keep your personal information accurate, please let us know if there are any errors or changes in your personal information.

You can request access to the personal information we hold about you at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer via the contact details at the bottom of this policy. You may also request the correction of any of the personal information we hold about you. In most cases, we can help you promptly and informally with these requests. In other cases, we may need to verify your identity and ask you to make your request in writing.

From time to time, we may need to reject your request to access or correct the personal information we hold about you, if we believe it to be necessary and to the extent allowed by law. We will provide our reasons if we deny your request for access to, or correction of, your personal information. Where we decide not to make a requested correction to your personal information and you disagree, you may ask us to make a note of your requested correction with the information we hold about you.

How can you make a privacy complaint?

We take your privacy concerns seriously. If you have a complaint regarding our handling of your personal information or concerning our privacy practices, you may file a complaint with our Privacy Officer using the contact details set out at the bottom of this Privacy Policy. Our Privacy Officer will confirm receipt of your complaint. If our Privacy Officer believes an investigation is necessary, we will open an investigation into your complaint. Our Privacy Officer may need to contact you to request further details of your complaint. If an investigation has been opened following a complaint made by you, our Privacy Officer will contact you with the result of that complaint as soon as possible. In the unlikely circumstances we are unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you may be able to may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au.

Policy reviews

From time to time, we may review and update this privacy policy. All personal information will be collected and handled by us in accordance with the most recently updated policy.

How to contact us

If you have any questions or comments about this privacy policy or our privacy practices please don’t hesitate to contact us as follows:

Contact: Privacy Officer
Address: 34A McLaren Street, North Sydney, NSW, 2060
Email: privacy@gidgetfoundation.org.auPhone:(02) 9460 1550

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Gidget Foundation Australia ABN 52 160 202 960

Last updated: 6 August 2024

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*For those clients who may access consultations that are funded by Sydney North Health Network (SNHN), further information regarding the use of deidentified data by SNHN can be found here.