Privacy Policy

Daughterly Care Community Services is committed to managing personal information in compliance with the Privacy Act 1988 (The Act) and the 13 Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) outlined in the Act.

In this Privacy Policy, “we” and “us” refers to Daughterly Care Community Services and “you” refers to any individual about whom we collect personal information.

What information does Daughterly Care Community Services collect and why?

The types of information we generally collect includes your name, date of birth, address and other contact details such as your telephone numbers and email address. Depending on the purpose of our interaction with you, we may also collect additional personal information.

Clients and prospective clients

We collect a variety of personal information when you enquire about our services or when you become a client of Daughterly Care Community Services. Providing us with accurate and complete information is important for the safety, quality and effectiveness of the services we provide.

Examples of personal information which we regularly collect include a person’s:

  • Previous and current medical history (including, where clinically relevant, a family medical history) and details of treatment and health services received;
  • Care plan;
  • Medications;
  • Information about other healthcare professionals and health service providers involved in the care;
  • Information about your healthcare preferences and wishes; and
  • Attorney, guardian or other person responsible for healthcare decisions.

Daughterly Care Community Services will also collect information relevant to administering payment arrangements such as your banking details.

Daughterly Care Community Services will, where practicable, collect information directly from you (for example, when we have contact with you in person, over the phone or via the internet). Daughterly Care Community Services may also collect personal information about you from third parties including:

  • Other healthcare professionals and health service providers involved in your care;
  • The Aged Care Assessment Team which assessed your need for care; and
  • Government agencies responsible for administering relevant entitlements and benefits (such as Centrelink).

We may also collect information about you from your family members, a carer, an attorney, a guardian or a person responsible for your healthcare decisions.

Prospective employees/applicants

We collect personal information when recruiting personnel, such as your name, contact details, qualifications and work history. Generally, we will collect this information directly from you. We may also collect personal information from third parties in ways which you would expect (for example, from recruitment agencies or referees you have nominated). Before offering you a position, we may collect additional details such as your tax file number, superannuation information and other information necessary to conduct police checks.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to Daughterly Care Community Services’s employee records.

Other individuals

Daughterly Care Community Services may collect personal information about other individuals who are not clients of Daughterly Care Community Services. This includes individual service providers and contractors to Daughterly Care Community Services; other individuals who interact with Daughterly Care Community Services on a commercial basis; and healthcare professionals who have referred clients to us or who are providing services to our clients. The kinds of personal information we collect will depend on the capacity in which you are dealing with Daughterly Care Community Services. Generally, it would include your name, contact details, professional details and information regarding our interactions and transactions with you.

Visitors to our website

The way in which we handle the personal information of visitors to our website is discussed below under the heading “How is your personal information handled on our websites?”

Caregivers using the MyCarePortal app

We use location-related information that you allow us to receive if you turn on the Location Services device setting. This includes things such as your GPS location and, depending on the operating system you’re using, other device signals. They include things such as nearby Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connections.
We also receive and use some location-related information even if location services is turned off. This includes:
  • IP addresses, which we use to estimate your general location. We can use IP addresses to estimate your specific location if it’s necessary to protect the safety and security of you or others.
  • Your and others’ activity on our products, such as check-ins and events
  • Information that you give us directly, such as if you enter your current city on your profile, or provide your address in Marketplace
We use your current location, to automatically track mileage with and between clients if you are a Caregiver.

Can I contact Daughterly Care Community Services anonymously?

You can enquire about our services anonymously or by use of a pseudonym. We may be able to discuss services that might be suitable, including costs which might be charged for those services. However, we cannot provide services to someone without confirming their identity. If we do not collect personal information about you, we may be unable to provide you with the information or services you have asked us to provide.

How does Daughterly Care Community Services hold and protect your personal information?

Daughterly Care Community Services primarily collects and holds your personal information in electronic form. Information held in electronic form is held securely on servers and computer systems. Certain information is collected and held in paper-based documents (such as administrative forms), which may be converted to electronic form and the original paper-based documents securely destroyed. Information which is retained in paper based form is held securely at our premises or in archive facilities in Australia.

We maintain physical security over our paper and electronic data stores, such as locks and security systems at our premises. We also maintain computer and network security; for example, we use firewalls (security measures for the Internet) and other security systems such as user identifiers and passwords to control access to our computer systems.

Due to the nature of the services we provide, documents recording your personal information may be left with you in your home (such as your care plan or care records). We cannot ensure the security of personal information which is left with you in your home. However, we will work with you to minimise the opportunity for other individuals to access your personal information.

Data Breaches

The Privacy Amendment (Notifiable Data Breaches) Act 2017 requires us to let you know if your information is impacted by a data breach. This means we will let you know in the way we normally communicate with you, if:

  • There is unauthorised access to or disclosure of your information; or your information is lost and unauthorised access or disclosure is likely to occur; and
  • There is a reasonable chance that this could cause you serious harm (which can include physical, physiological, emotional, economic or reputational harm); and
  • We have been unable to remedy the situation in line with the Act.

If we are unable to contact any affected parties individually we will post a notification that an eligible data breach has occurred on our website.

In such circumstances we are also required to inform the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

We will follow our Notifiable Data Breach Procedure in these instances.

Why does Daughterly Care Community Services collect your personal information?

Daughterly Care Community Services collects personal information about clients in order to assess and manage your needs when we are providing our services to you. For example, we collect information about your health to ensure that our services respond to your healthcare needs; to ensure that our services are consistent with other healthcare services you receive; and to minimise the need for you to provide the same information on multiple occasions.

Providing accurate and complete information is important for the safety, quality and effectiveness of the services we provide. It is also important to ensure you receive the correct entitlements to benefits and funding for the services we provide. If you provide incomplete or inaccurate information, we may not be able to provide you with the services you seek. If you have any concerns about personal information we have asked you to provide, please let us know.

How does Daughterly Care Community Services use and disclose your personal information?

Your personal information will usually be shared with other persons involved in your care. Generally, this will only happen in ways you would reasonably expect or otherwise with your consent. For example, Daughterly Care Community Services staff members, such as your Care Manager, rostering and accounting staff will access your personal information as the course of our business further, may disclose your personal information to your GP or to a medical specialist involved in your care; to a hospital or aged care facility if you are referred for respite or higher levels of care; or to other healthcare professionals who are involved in your care such as nurses, occupational therapists, pharmacists, physiotherapists, podiatrists, dentists and the ambulance service.

In an emergency, we may provide personal information to other healthcare professionals and health services without your consent.

Administration and management

Daughterly Care Community Services will also use and disclose your personal information for a range of administrative, management and operational purposes. This includes:

  • Administering billing and payments and debt recovery;
  • Liaising with, and reporting to, government agencies in the administration of particular funding programs;
  • Administering subsidies and benefits to which you may be entitled from government agencies and other third-party payers (such as Centrelink);
  • Planning, managing, monitoring and evaluating our services;
  • Safety and quality assurance and improvement activities;
  • Statistical analysis and reporting;
  • Training staff and other workers;
  • Risk management and management of legal liabilities and claims (for example,liaising with insurers and legal representatives);
  • Responding to enquiries and complaints regarding services provided to clients (including external bodies, such as the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency, Aged Care Complaints Scheme and the Office of the Aged Care Commissioner);
  • Obtaining advice from consultants and other professional advisers; and
  • Responding to subpoenas and other legal orders and obligations.

We may also use your information for a secondary purpose such as research or marketing if:

  • You have consented; or
  • Where it is impracticable to seek consent, we will give you the opportunity to opt out of further communications.

Will your information be disclosed to overseas recipients?

Daughterly Care Community Services does not typically or routinely disclose personal information to overseas recipients. Unless we have your consent, or an exception under the Australian Privacy Principles applies, we will only disclose your personal information to overseas recipients where we have taken reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipient does not breach the Australian Privacy Principles in relation to your personal information.

How can you access, correct and update your personal information

If you ask us we can normally give you access to your personal information. However, we may deny a request for access if:

  • The information poses a serious threat to the life or health of any person;
  • Releasing information would impact upon another person’s privacy;
  • The information relates to existing legal proceedings;
  • Providing access would be unlawful; or
  • The information relates to a sensitive decision about how we operate our business.

If you would like to access or change your information, you may contact Daughterly Care Community Services. It will be necessary for you to verify your identity, and you may need to visit Daughterly Care Community Services’s head office to access the information you would like to see.

If you believe the personal information we hold is inaccurate, incomplete, not up to date or misleading, you may request that the information be amended and we must take reasonable steps to correct the information.

If we do not give you access to your information, we will explain why.

How long will Daughterly Care Community Services hold your personal information?

Daughterly Care Community Services will hold your personal information until it is no longer needed. Generally, if you are a client, your personal information will be held for a minimum of 7 years from the date of last entry in your record (in the case of children, the record is kept until the client attains or would have attained 25 years of age). This complies with Daughterly Care Community Services’s legal requirements to maintain such records.

Information that is no longer needed will be securely destroyed or de-identified.

How is your personal information handled on our websites?

You may visit our websites (such as www.daughterlycare.com.au) without identifying yourself. If you identify yourself (for example, by providing your contact details in an enquiry), any personal information you provide to Daughterly Care Community Services will be managed in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Daughterly Care Community Services websites use cookies. A ‘cookie’ is a small file stored on your computer’s browser, which assists in managing customised settings of the website and delivering content. We collect certain information such as you device type, browser type, IP address, pages you accessed on our website and on third-party websites. You are not identifiable from such information. Daughterly Care Community Services uses third-party services (such as Google Analytics) to undertake demographic analysis of visitors to our website.

Our website may contain links to third-party websites. Daughterly Care Community Services is not responsible for the content or privacy practices employed by websites that are linked from our website.

How can you make a complaint about the handling of your personal information?

You may contact Daughterly Care Community Services at any time if you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or about the way in which your personal information has been handled.

You may make a complaint about privacy to the Operations Manager at the contact details set out below.

The Operations Manager will first consider your complaint to determine whether there are simple or immediate steps which can be taken to resolve the complaint.

We will generally respond to your complaint within a week.

If your complaint requires more detailed consideration or investigation, we will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within a week and endeavour to complete our investigation into your complaint promptly. We may ask you to provide further information about your complaint and the outcome you are seeking. We will then typically gather relevant facts, locate and review relevant documents and speak with individuals involved.

In most cases, we will investigate and respond to a complaint within 30 days. If the matter is more complex or our investigation may take longer, we will let you know.

If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you are entitled to make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner can be contacted by telephone on 1300 363 992. Full contact details for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner can be found online at www.oaic.gov.au.

How are changes to this Privacy Policy made?

This Privacy Policy may be reviewed or amended from time to time. You can access the most up to date copy of this policy by visiting our website (www.daughterlycare.com.au).

How can you contact Daughterly Care Community Services?

The contact details for Daughterly Care Community Services are:

Mail: PO Box 670, Narrabeen NSW 2101

Head Office Address: Shop 3, 20 Wellington Street, Narrabeen NSW 2101

Mosman Address: Shop 3/386 Military Rd Mosman NSW 2088

Email: services@dccommunityservices.com.au

Facsimile: (02) 9913 2214

Telephone: (02) 9970 7333

This Privacy Policy was last updated 14 April 2021.