Carinity provides high quality care and services that make a difference to people in need as a provider of aged care, education, retirement lifestyle, disability support, counselling, chaplaincy, youth and community services.
Carinity engages volunteers and employees, and receives donations, funding and support from members of the community, corporations, groups and governments to carry out this mission. Carinity holds contracts to deliver State and Commonwealth government programs.
Carinity is committed to protecting your personal information and meeting our obligations under the Act, including the Australian Privacy Principles.
This policy sets out how Carinity manages your personal information.
The purpose of this policy is to:
4.1. Personal Information generally
Carinity may collect personal information from you. We will only collect your personal information where it is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, one or more of our functions or activities.
Generally, we may collect the following personal information from you:
If you are a service user of Carinity’s Aged Care and Home Care services, we may also collect your:
If you are a service user of a Carinity school or youth service, such as a parent or student, we may also collect your:
If you are a Carinity donor, we may also collect your donation history and amounts.
If you are a Carinity worker, or prospective worker, we may also collect:
If you are a user of Carinity’s website, we may also collect your “cookies”, to help customise your experience when interacting with the website and generation of statistical information used to help us improve the experience over time. We do not collect personal information through the “cookies”.
At some of our sites, we use CCTV to maintain the safety and security of our service users, visitors, workers and property. Sometimes, our CCTV will collect and store personal information.
4.2. Sensitive Information (including health information)
As part of providing our services, Carinity may collect your sensitive information. Examples of your sensitive information that Carinity may collect include:
We will not collect your sensitive information unless the collection of the information is reasonably necessary for or directly related to one or more of our functions or activities, and:
5.1. Means of Collection
We will collect your personal information only by lawful and fair means.
Unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so, we will collect your personal information directly from you.
We collect information through various means, including:
If you are a service user of our Aged Care and Home Care services, we may also collect your information through:
If you are a service user of our Education services, we may also collect your information through:
In relation to donations, we may collect personal information through online registrations and donations.
Carinity is an outreach of Queensland Baptists, and we may collect your personal information from Queensland Baptists. If we have done so, then the purpose of collecting this particular information is as set out in Queensland Baptists’ privacy policy available at their website here: Privacy Policy – Queensland Baptists (qb.org.au).
If you feel the information that we are requesting, either on our forms or in our discussions, is not information you wish to provide, please raise this with us.
5.2. Holding
Carinity takes reasonable steps to protect the personal and sensitive information we hold against misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.
Our security measures include, but are not limited to:
Where reasonable, Carinity will take steps to ensure that your personal information that we collect, use and disclose is accurate, up-to-date and complete.
We retain your personal information for as long as the information is required for any purpose under this policy, or otherwise required under law. If your personal information is no longer required, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify the information.
6.1. Purposes of Collection, Hold, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information
We only use your personal information for the purposes for which it was given to us (“primary purpose”), or for purposes which are directly related or related to one of our functions or activities (“secondary purpose”). Carinity collects, holds and discloses your personal information to:
In our Aged Care and Home Care services, our purposes also include:
In our Education service, our purposes also include:
In relation Carinity donors, our purposes also include:
If we are unable to collect all or some of your personal information, we may not be able to provide you with the most appropriate care and service for your needs or achieve the other purposes which for which we seek to collect your personal information.
Background checks into workers and prospective workers such as a bankruptcy search, or a criminal history check, such as a Police check, Blue Card or Yellow Card, may be required to meet our obligations under law. If you are a worker or prospective worker, you may be required to provide some information for a police check including identity documents for submission on your behalf and with your consent, for a nationally coordinated criminal history check through Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission National Police Checking Service. Carinity abides by the agreement for controlled access by duly Accredited Bodies, to access Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Checks. In some cases, the police check will be received directly by Carinity and then stored securely or destroyed.
6.2. Health Information
In some situations, it is necessary for Carinity to collect or receive health information. In this circumstance, Carinity will advise why the information is being collected and whether and to whom it will be released.
Carinity will not use health information beyond the consent provided by you, unless your further consent is obtained in accordance with one of the exceptions under the Act or in compliance with another law.
If Carinity uses your health information for research or statistical purposes, it will be de-identified if practicable to do so.
6.3. Marketing
We will not use or disclose personal information about you for the purposes of direct marketing, unless:
We will not use or disclose your sensitive information for direct marketing, unless you have consented to the sensitive information being used for direct marketing.
If we use your personal information for the purposes of direct marketing, you may:
7.1. Right of Access and Correction
You have a right to request that we provide access to your personal information that we hold, and to seek correction to that personal information.
We shall make all reasonable attempts to grant you that access, or correct your personal information, unless an exception applies. An example of an exception is where the request will unreasonably impact upon the privacy of other individuals.
If we refuse to do so, we must give reasons in writing for this.
If an exception applies for granting access, and we refuse to provide access to your personal information, where reasonable to do so, we will seek to take reasonable steps to find an alternative way to provide you with access to your information,
7.2. Requesting access, and seeking correction
If you wish to request access and/or correction to your personal information, please address this in writing to our Privacy Officer.
For security reasons, you will be required to put your request in writing and provide proof of identity. This is necessary to ensure personal information is provided only to the correct individuals and the privacy of others is not undermined.
7.3. Granting access
On request (and after determining your right to access the information requested), Carinity will take reasonable steps to provide access to the requested information it holds within 30 calendar days of a request being received. In situations where the request is complicated or requires access to large volumes of information, Carinity will consult with you to explain the delay and provide an expected timeframe for finalizing the request.
Carinity may charge a reasonable fee for providing access to personal information.
8.1. How can you complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles, and how will we deal with it?
A privacy complaint relates to any concern that you may have regarding our privacy practices or our handling of your personal information.
This could include matters such as:
If you wish to make a complaint about the way we have managed your personal information, you may make that complaint verbally or in writing by setting out the details of your complaint to our Privacy Officer.
8.2. How Carinity will deal with a privacy complaint
A privacy complaint will be logged onto our database and handled by us in accordance with our internal procedures.
The goal of Carinity’s complaints handling procedure is to achieve an effective resolution within a reasonable timeframe, usually 30 days or as soon as practicable. However, in some cases, particularly if the matter is complex, the resolution may take longer. We will keep a record of each complaint and the outcome.
We are unable to respond to anonymous complaints. This is because we are unable to investigate and follow-up such complaints. If an anonymous complaint is received, we will note the issue/s raised and, where appropriate, investigate and resolve appropriately.
8.3. What other mechanisms do you have if your privacy complaint is unresolved?
If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome of your privacy complaint following a response from our Privacy Officer, you may make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
8.4. What are our Privacy Officer’s Contact Details?
Our Privacy Officer’s contact details are as follows:
Telephone: 07 3550 3737
Post: PO Box 6164, Mitchelton QLD 4053
Email: Privacy.Officer@carinity.org.au
8.5. Assisted Contact
If you are deaf, or have a hearing or speech impairment, please contact us through the National Relay Service:
In the course of providing our services, we may occasionally use cloud technology for the purposes of storing information. We take steps to ensure that service providers have secure practices around storing personal information that are consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles and limit their collection and use of personal information to what is required.
We do not usually send personal information out of Australia. If we are otherwise required to send information overseas, we will take measures to protect your personal information. We will protect your personal information either by ensuring that the country of destination has similar protections in relation to privacy, or that we enter into contractual arrangements with the recipient of your personal information that
10.1. Third Party Websites
Carinity websites may from time to time contain links to other websites. Carinity stresses that when an online user accesses a website that is not a Carinity website, it may have a different privacy policy. To verify how that website collects and uses information, the user should check that particular website’s policy.
10.2. Employee Record
Under the Act, the Australian Privacy Principles do not apply to an employee record. Accordingly, this policy does not apply to employee records. These are dealt with through workplace laws.
Act means the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
Employee Record is a record of personal information relating to the employment of the employee. Examples of personal information relating to the employment of the employee are health information about the employee and personal information about all or any of the following:
Health Information is:
Permitted general situation are certain situations defined under the Act, and includes:
Permitted health situation are certain situations defined under the Act, and includes:
Personal information as defined in the Act is information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not.
Sensitive information as defined in the Act is information or opinion (that is also personal information) about an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association, membership of a trade union, sexual orientation or practices, criminal record, health, genetic, biometric information or biometric templates.
Serious Harm is as defined in the Act and may occur when a reasonable person would conclude that the access or disclosure of personal information would be likely to result in serious harm to any of the individuals to whom the information relates. Information more likely to cause serious harm if compromised includes:
Unsolicited Information is all personal information received from an individual that we did not actively seek to collect.
Us, our and we means Carinity and our services.
Workers means all members of the Carinity workforce, including Council members, employees, volunteers, contractors or consultants engaged to perform work for Carinity.
You and your means a natural person or persons that is using our services, and generally an individual under the Act.
Carinity is committed to complying with the obligations imposed on Carinity under all legislation including but not limited to:
13.1. Policies
13.2. Procedures
13.3. Internal Documents
Our friendly Customer Service Team are here to help you navigate and access support.