Privacy statement

The Information Privacy Principles

Cancer Council Victoria is bound by 2 Victorian laws that are designed to protect the privacy of individuals.

The Information Privacy Act 2000
Find out more by calling the Office of the Victorian Privacy Commissioner on 1300 666 444 or by visiting the website www.privacy.vic.gov.au, and
The Health Records Act 2001
Find out more by calling the Victorian Health Services Commissioner on 1800 136 066 or by visiting the website at www.health.vic.gov.au/hsc.

We respect and uphold your rights to privacy under these laws by regulating the way we collect, use, disclose, hold and destroy personal information. We have a detailed policy and set of procedures to ensure that only authorised staff have access to your personal information and that it remains confidential and only used for appropriate purposes and in accordance with the policy.

This privacy statement covers all personal information held by us, whether it's information or an opinion about any individual whose identity is apparent or can be reasonably ascertained from that information or opinion. This includes information we've collected from people over the phone, through mail, personal contact or over the internet.

Our Privacy Policy is also designed to ensure compliance, in the case of specific human research projects, with the National Privacy Principles contained in the Commonwealth Government's Privacy Act 1998.

Why we collect personal information

Within Cancer Council Victoria there are many reasons for collecting information about individuals including:

To meet Cancer Act 1958 (Vic) requirements, including those relating to the Cancer Registry
For our research and surveys
So we may send out information about our services or cancer-related issues
So we may provide support and counselling in regard to cancer prevention, treatment and management
So we may provide information and resources about fundraising
To maintain our donor and sponsorship databases, to help with income development
So we can contact our volunteers and committee members
To evaluate applications for employment.

How we collect personal information

We collect your personal information when you provide it to us, in a number of ways including:

when you request a product or service from us, such as ordering resources
by participating in one of our many community fundraising and information events
when you respond to our fundraising mail
when you give consent to and take part in trials, surveys, etc.
when you join a committee.

How we keep personal information secure

Cancer Council Victoria takes reasonable steps to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, improper disclosure or unauthorised destruction. We apply generally accepted standards of technology and operational security to keep personal information secure.

If you provide us with your personal information, it's securely stored in our databases, which are accessed only by authorised staff. All hard copy data is disposed of appropriately when no longer needed.

Phone contact

When we contact you, or you contact us, we like to be sure that our staff are as skilled as possible in answering your queries, so an authorised senior supervisor may monitor or record calls for quality assurance.

Using personal information

Any personal information that we collect about you will only be used by us for the reason it was collected in the first instance, unless:

it could be reasonably expected that Cancer Council would use the information for a related purpose
you have specifically agreed to the related purpose
the information is not sensitive and the use of the information is for our direct marketing, for example, information about our events.

You are able to opt out of receiving further information from us unless there's a legal requirement for Cancer Council to provide such information.

If you'd like to opt out of receiving any further information or requests from Cancer Council please contact us on on (03) 9635 5000 or enquiries@cancervic.org.au

Disclosing personal information

Cancer Council Victoria does not lend or give away any information collected from any of our activities, except:

with your consent
to lessen or prevent a serious and imminent threat to your health or safety
when required by law
in preparation for or conduct of legal proceedings in a court or tribunal
in the public interest, for example, to lessen or prevent a serious threat to public health or safety.

Personal information about our supporters is never sold or provided to any 3rd parties for marketing purposes.

Contracted service providers who handle information relating to our supporters are legally bound by their contracts to comply with our Privacy Policy and the Information Privacy Principles.

Visiting our websites

Like many organisations, we track usage patterns on our websites. We record things like:

date and time of visits
pages accessed and documents downloaded
search items entered.

This information does not identify individuals and is used only to measure the number of visitors to the different sections of the sites to help us make them more useful to you.

Sometimes we need to store temporary information, which can personalise your visit to our site, using cookies. Cookies are simply an alternative for storing information used by web page scripts in your computer's browser rather than on a server. Cookies can't gather any more information about you than what's already publicly available when you surf the web or what you offer in a web form.

We'll only record your email address if you send us a message. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose without your consent.

Cancer Council Victoria websites contain links to other sites of interest. Cancer Council Victoria does not control, and is not responsible for, the content or privacy practices of those websites. Please check the Privacy Statements on other websites before you provide your personal information to them.

By using Cancer Council websites, you agree that the Internet is inherently insecure and accordingly, Cancer Council Victoria can't provide any definite assurance regarding security or personal information. Cancer Council Victoria will not be liable in any way in relation to any breach of security or any unintended loss or disclosure of that information.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

Cancer Council Victoria may, without notice, amend or modify its Privacy Policy by posting the amended Privacy Policy to this website.

How to access, correct or update your personal information

If you'd like to access the information that we hold about you, you can write to us.

If you know that the information that we hold about you is incorrect please contact us so we can update our records as soon as possible. In the unlikely event that we're unable to provide you with access to your personal information for legal reasons, as specified in the Information Privacy Act and Health Record Act, we'll provide you with reasons for denying access.