Website and social media privacy policy

The Mental Health Complaints Commissioner (MHCC) is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal and health information.

Our commitment to your privacy

The Mental Health Complaints Commissioner (MHCC) is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal and health information.

We must comply with a number of laws when dealing with your information, including the Mental Health Act 2014 (the Act), the Health Records Act 2001, the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014, the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006.

We will not disclose your personal or health information in a way that identifies you, unless you consent or we are authorised or required to do so by law.

What is covered by this policy?

This policy explains how the MHCC handles your personal and health information as you access and interact with our website and our social media sites.

It covers:

  • what ‘personal and health information’ means
  • the information that we collect through our website and social media sites and how we use it
  • our social media rules
  • how to contact us for questions, feedback or complaints

Our separate privacy policy details how and when we collect, use and disclose personal and health information in our work with you.

When following links to other sites from our website, please read the privacy policy for those sites. Please also be aware of the specific privacy policies of Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms when using them to interact with us.

What is personal and health information?

Personal information is recorded information that can identify a living person.

Health information is information that can identify a person, including a person who has died, that relates to the person’s physical, mental or psychological health, disability or genetic make-up. It also includes information about the health services provided, or that will be provided, to a person.

What information do we collect via our website and social media sites?

We may collect personal or health information if you provide it to us through our website or social media sites. For example, we will collect information that you provide, if you:

  • complete our online complaint form
  • subscribe to receive information from us
  • participate in an MHCC online survey, event or activity
  • send a message or comment via our website or to an email address displayed on our website
  • post a message on one of our social media sites

What do we do with the information that we collect?

We use and disclose personal and health information:

  • for the purpose described on our website or social media sites when you provide the information
  • as needed for the operation, administration or development of our website
  • in accordance with our privacy policy

If we conduct an awareness raising activity through social media, we will explain whether or not you need to be identified and how we will use the information.

We only add email addresses and any other contact details that you provide to our mailing list with your consent.

Website data

When you access our website, the following data is automatically recorded by the web server for statistical and system administration purposes:

  • Your IP address
  • Your domain name (e.g. yahoo.com, hotmail.com etc.)
  • The date and the time that you visited our website
  • The pages that you accessed and the files that you downloaded
  • The URL (web address) of the last site that you visited before you accessed our website
  • Your operating system
  • The type of browser that you are using

We will not attempt to identify you from this data unless we are required to do so by law.

Cookies

Like many sites, our website uses cookies to collect this data. Cookies are small data files that a website can place on a user's hard drive to record and improve aspects of the user's website experience. For example, as well as collecting the above data, cookies can help to ensure online applications and transactions don’t require the user to re-enter information when moving between web pages. In this way, cookies can improve the operation of the website, and make using the site more efficient for the user. Cookies don’t need to identify the user or record any personal information in order to place information on a user’s computer and refer to it later (either in the same user session or during a future session).

The default settings of some website browsers allow some or all cookies, but users can also erase cookies from their hard drive, block all cookies, or be prompted by a warning before a cookie is stored.

Our social media rules

We have house rules that apply to our social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which can be found on our Facebook site. We may moderate or remove content in order to protect a person’s privacy, however, we don’t control these platforms or who can access our sites.

Automatic collection by third party software vendors

This website uses several online tools to measure website use, which are provided by third party software vendors. We use these tools to help us make our site better.

We use software by third parties, including:

For further information on how these third party software vendors handle your personal information, please review their privacy policies. Personal information may be provided to third parties when accessing this website. Information that may be shared to third parties includes:

  • network location and IP address
  • the date and time of your visit to our website
  • the types of web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari) and operating system (e.g. Windows 10, Mac OS X etc.) you are using
  • Flash version, JavaScript support, screen resolution and screen colour processing ability
  • Referring site details (such as the URL that you came through to arrive at our website)
  • Page visited and the time spent on each page
  • Documents downloaded and search terms used
  • The forms accessed on our website
  • Unique device identifier
  • Cookies and data about which page you visited
  • Device information, hardware model, operating system information, app version, app usage, debugging information, browser information
  • Geo location information (if enabled by user)
  • May assign a unique user identifier

The information we disclose to some of our third-party vendors may travel outside Victoria. We take steps to ensure that when your personal information travels, privacy protections travel with it.

Third party software vendors may alter how they collect and handle personal information at any time.

Use and disclosure

Use of web analytics data

We use web analytics data for statistical purposes, such as to analyse, measure, and report on data about our website traffic and visits. This information helps us understand general user trends at an aggregate level, and improve our website, content, and user experience.

We may also use this information for security audits to protect against threats from hackers or other security purposes.

We do not use this information to identify you or match it with any other personal information that we may collect from you, unless required to do so as part of an internal investigation or for a law enforcement-related purpose, in accordance with the PDP Act.

Your site visit data is collected under the authority of Information Privacy Principle 1.1 of the PDP Act for the purposes stated above.

Disclosure of web analytics data

Apart from the third party tools described in this Privacy Statement, we do not disclose your site visit data to any other third parties without your consent, unless we are required or authorised to do so by law. In the event of an investigation into suspected unlawful or improper activity, a law enforcement or government agency may use its legal authority to inspect our web server’s records (e.g. in relation to hacking or abusive messages).

Can I opt out of the collection of web analytics data?

You cannot opt out of the automatic collection of information that is used for analytical purposes, however you may choose to disable cookies or delete any individual cookie. If you choose to disable cookies, the website may not function fully and your ability to browse, read, and download information contained on our website may be impaired. However, you may still access our services by contacting our office via other methods such as telephone, email, or mail.

You can enable a “Do Not Track” setting on your browser to help protect your privacy. When Do Not Track is tuned on, your browser will send a Do Not Track request to the sites you visit, and to the third parties whose content is hosted on those sites. However, many websites will still collect and use your browsing data regardless of the Do Not Track Request. This depends on individual sites’ privacy practices. Sending a Do Not Track request does not guarantee privacy protection.

Instructions on how to enable the Do Not Track setting:

You can also opt out of tracking and website analytics using a Google browser plugin.

Questions and complaints

If you have a question about this policy, or want to ask us about your personal or health information or make a complaint about how we handled this information, please contact us:

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