How The Bridge Effect collects, uses, stores and protects your family’s personal information, in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.
The Bridge Effect is committed to providing quality services to you, and this policy outlines our ongoing obligations to you in how we manage your personal information.
We have adopted the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act). The APPs govern the way we collect, use, disclose, store, secure and dispose of your personal information. A copy of the APPs is available from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au.
Personal information is information or an opinion that identifies an individual. Examples of personal information we collect include names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers.
We collect personal information in a number of ways, including:
We collect your personal information for the primary purpose of providing our speech pathology and occupational therapy services to you and your child. This includes communicating with you about appointments and your child’s care, processing NDIS, Medicare and private billing, and marketing (including remarketing through Google and Meta). We may also use your personal information for secondary purposes closely related to the primary purpose, in circumstances where you would reasonably expect such use.
You can unsubscribe from our marketing communications at any time by contacting us or using the unsubscribe link in our emails.
When we collect personal information, we will, where appropriate and possible, explain why we are collecting it and how we plan to use it.
As a paediatric allied health provider, most of the information we hold about your child is health information, such as assessment results, therapy notes, diagnoses, developmental history and NDIS plan details. Health information is “sensitive information” under the Privacy Act and is given a higher level of protection.
Sensitive information (which can also include information such as racial or ethnic origin, where relevant to your child’s care) will be used by us only:
Where reasonable and practicable, we collect your personal information directly from you. In some circumstances we may be given information by third parties, such as a referring GP, school or other allied health provider. Where this happens, we will take reasonable steps to make sure you are aware of the information provided to us.
Your personal information may be disclosed in circumstances including:
Some of the online tools we use to run our website and marketing, including Google (Analytics and Ads), Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and HubSpot (our CRM), may store or process personal information on servers outside Australia, including in the United States. Where this happens, we take reasonable steps to make sure these providers handle your information in a way that is consistent with the APPs, including by relying on their published privacy and security commitments. We do not otherwise disclose your child’s health information overseas.
Your personal information is stored in a way that reasonably protects it from misuse, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
Client health records are kept for as long as required under NSW health records law, including the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW). When personal information no longer needs to be kept, we take reasonable steps to destroy it or permanently de-identify it.
You may access the personal information we hold about you or your child, and ask for it to be updated or corrected, subject to certain exceptions under the Privacy Act. To request access, please contact us in writing using the details below. To protect your privacy, we may ask for proof of identity before releasing the information.
It’s important to us that your information is accurate, complete and up to date. If you notice that information we hold about you or your child is wrong or out of date, please let us know so we can update our records.
This policy may change from time to time. The current version is always available on this page.
If you have a question or complaint about this policy, or about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us:
If you are not satisfied with our response, you can make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at www.oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.
