Privacy Policy

HOBART COUNSELLING CENTRE

PRIVACY POLICY for Psychological Services

Client Consent to Collect & Disclose Information

Hobart Counselling Centre is committed to providing you with the highest levels of confidentiality and service. This includes protecting your privacy. Recent amendments to the Privacy Act require health practitioners in private practice to obtain consent from their clients to collect, use and disclose clients’ personal information.

Collection

This means your Hobart Counselling Centre practitioner will collect information that is necessary to properly advise and treat you. Such necessary information may include:

  • Full personal history
  • Family history
  • Contact details
  • Billing account details

This information will normally be collected directly from you. There may be occasions when your practitioner will need to obtain information from other sources, for example:

  • Your general practitioner, psychiatrist, or medical specialist
  • Other health care providers, such as a former psychologist or counsellor, or practitioners treating other family members
  • Your lawyer
  • Hospitals or clinics

No contact with other professionals will be made without prior discussion with you resulting in your verbal consent. In emergency situations it may be necessary for your practitioner to collect personal information from relatives or other sources where it is not possible to obtain your prior express consent.

Use & Disclosure

With your consent, your practitioner will use and disclose your information, only as required, for purposes such as:

  • Account keeping and billing purpose
  • Referral to a medical practitioner, other health care provider, hospital or clinic
  • To meet obligations of notification to motor vehicle accident insurers, workers’ compensation insurers, health funds, or professional indemnity insurers
  • Complaint handling
  • Where legally required to do so, such as producing records to court
  • To prevent or lessen a serious threat to an individual’s life, health, or safety
Access

You are entitled to access your own records at any time convenient to both yourself and your practitioner. Access can be denied where:

  • To provide access would create a serious threat to life, health or safety
  • The access would unreasonably impact on the privacy of another
  • Your request is frivolous or
  • There is a legal impediment to access, or you are not entitled to access information relating to anticipated or actual legal proceedings.

It is asked that, where possible, your request be in writing. A charge may be imposed for photocopying and time involved in processing your request. Where you dispute the accuracy of the information that has been recorded, you are entitled to correct that information. It is Centre policy that all steps will be taken to record all of your corrections and place them with your file but not to erase the original record.

A copy of the Centre’s Privacy Policy is available upon request.

In summary, any personal details collected about you will be done so in confidence. The information will be stored securely and available for your inspection on request. The information will not be disclosed to a third party without your permission. You are required to give verbal consent regarding these privacy conditions to your practitioner prior to the commencement of treatment.

HOBART COUNSELLING CENTRE

PRIVACY POLICY for Online Programs/ Products

We at Hobart Counselling Centre. (“Diane McGeachy,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) have created this privacy policy (this “Privacy Policy”) because we know that you care about how information you provide to us is used and shared. This Privacy Policy applies to our information collection and use practices: (i) online when you visit our website www.hobartcounselling.com.au (the “Website”); and (ii) offline when you provide information to us.

 

ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS

By visiting our Website, you are agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy and the accompanying Terms of Use, both of which govern your use of the Website. By providing us information offline, you are also agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

 

THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

In the course of operating the Website and/or interacting with you, we will collect (and/or receive) the following types of information.

1. Personal Information.

When you sign up to receive any of our newsletters, respond to a survey, or purchase any product or service, you may be required to provide us with personal information about yourself, such as your name, address, email address, and phone number. We do not collect any personal information from Visitors when they use the Website unless they provide such information voluntarily, such as by registering or sending us an email or signing up for a newsletter. All information we collect and/or receive under this section is collectively called “Personal Information.”

2. Order Information.

When you place an Order, you must provide us with certain information about the products and services you are seeking to purchase. Such information is collectively called the “Order Information.”

3. Billing Information.

When you wish to purchase a product or service, you will be required to provide certain information in addition to the Personal Information and Order Information noted above. Such information may include a debit card number, credit card number, expiration date, billing address, activation codes, and similar information. Such information is collectively called the “Billing Information.” Although we will have access to the Billing Information, it will also be collected and processed by our third-party payment vendors pursuant to the terms and conditions of their privacy policies and terms of use.

4. Other Information.

In addition to the information noted above, we may collect additional information (collectively, the “Other Information”). Such Other Information may include:

a. From You. Additional information about yourself that you voluntarily provide to us (e.g., via a survey), such as household income range, gender, product and service preferences, interests, opinions and other information that does not identify you personally.

b. From Your Activity. Information that we automatically collect when you use the Website, including, without limitation:

IP addresses, which may consist of a static or dynamic IP address and will sometimes point to a specific identifiable computer or device; browser type and language; referring and exit pages and URLs; date and time; amount of time spent on particular pages; what sections of the Website you visit; and similar data; and

Information about your device, including the type of device; universally unique ID (“UUID”); advertising identifier (“IDFA”); MAC address; operating system and version (e.g., iOS, Android or Windows); carrier and country location; hardware and processor information (e.g., storage, chip speed, camera resolution, NFC enabled); network type (WIFI, 3G, 4G, LTE); and similar data.

c. From Cookies. Information that we collect using “cookie” technology. Cookies are small packets of data that a website stores on your computer’s or mobile device’s hard drive so that your computer will “remember” information about your visit. We may use both session cookies (which expire once you close your web browser) and persistent cookies (which stay on your computer until you delete them) to help us collect Other Information and to enhance your experience using the Websites. If you do not want us to place a cookie on your hard drive, you may be able to turn that feature off on your computer or mobile device. Please consult your Internet browser’s documentation for information on how to do this and how to delete persistent cookies. However, if you decide not to accept cookies from us, the Websites may not function properly.

d. Third-Party Analytics. We use third-party analytics services (such as Google Analytics) to evaluate your use of the Websites, compile reports on activity, collect demographic data, analyse performance metrics, and collect and evaluate other information relating to the Websites and mobile and Internet usage. These third parties use cookies and other technologies to help analyse and provide us the data. By accessing and using the Websites, you consent to the processing of data about you by these analytics providers in the manner and for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

For more information on Google Analytics, including how to opt out from certain data collection, please visit https://www.google.com/analytics. Please be advised that if you opt out of any service, you may not be able to use the full functionality of the Websites.

e. From Other Sources. We also may collect or receive information from third parties, such as Facebook and/or other third-party social media sites.

 

INFORMATION COLLECTED BY OR THROUGH THIRD-PARTY ADVERTISING COMPANIES

We may share Other Information about your activity on the Website with third parties for the purpose of tailoring, analysing, managing, reporting, and optimising advertising you see on the Website and elsewhere. These third parties may use cookies, pixel tags (also called web beacons or clear gifs), and/or other technologies to collect such Other Information for such purposes. Pixel tags enable us, and these third-party advertisers, to recognise a browser’s cookie when a browser visits the site on which the pixel tag is located in order to learn which advertisement brings a user to a given site.

 

ACCESSING AND MODIFYING PERSONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION PREFERENCES

If you have registered for the Website, you may access, review, and make changes to your Personal Information, Billing Information, and certain Other Information by following the instructions found on the Website. In addition, you may manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any Hobart Counselling Centre marketing emails. Customers cannot opt out of receiving transactional emails related to their account or their Orders. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to process such requests in a timely manner. You should be aware, however, that it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our subscription databases.

 

HOW WE USE AND SHARE THE INFORMATION

We use the Personal Information, the Order Information, the Billing Information, and the Other Information (collectively, the “Information”) to provide our services; to process Orders; to administer our rewards and promotional programs; to maintain and improve our Website and services to you; to solicit your feedback; and to inform you about our products and services and those of our third-party marketing partners.

We may also use and/or share Information as described below.

Hobart Counselling Centre will access, use, and share the Information as required to process your Orders and provide support to you.

In order to provide our services and administer our rewards and promotional programs, we may share the Information (excluding the Billing Information) with our third-party promotional and marketing partners, including, without limitation, businesses participating in our various programs.

We may employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples may include providing technical assistance, Order fulfillment, customer service, and marketing assistance. These other companies will have access to the Information only as necessary to perform their functions and to the extent permitted by law.

In an ongoing effort to better understand our Visitors, customers, and our products and services, we may analyse the Order Information and Other Information in aggregate form in order to operate, maintain, manage, and improve the Website and/or our products and services. This aggregate information does not identify you personally. We may share this aggregate data with our affiliates, agents, and business partners. We may also disclose aggregated user statistics in order to describe our products and services to current and prospective business partners and to other third parties for other lawful purposes.

As we develop our businesses, we might sell or buy businesses or assets. In the event of a corporate sale, merger, reorganisation, sale of assets, dissolution, or similar event, the Information may be part of the transferred assets.

To the extent permitted by law, we may also disclose the Information: (i) when required by law, court order, or other government or law enforcement authority or regulatory agency; or (ii) whenever we believe that disclosing such Information is necessary or advisable, for example, to protect the rights, property, or safety of Hobart Counselling Centre or others.We may also use and/or share Information as described below.

INFORMATION YOU SHARE

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily make your Personal Information available to third parties — for example on message boards or web logs; through email; during webinars, classes, telephone conferences, or coaching calls; or in comment or chat areas — that information can be seen, collected, heard, and/or used by others besides us. We cannot be responsible for any unauthorised third-party use of such information.

 

HOW WE PROTECT THE INFORMATION

We take commercially reasonable steps to protect the Information from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. Please understand, however, that no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our databases, nor can we guarantee that the Information that you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to and from us over the Internet. In particular, e-mail sent to or from the Websites may not be secure, and you should, therefore, take special care in deciding what information you send to us via email.

 

IMPORTANT NOTICE TO NON-AUSTRALIAN RESIDENTS

It is important to note that the Website and the servers are operated in Australia. If you are located outside of Australia, please be aware that any Information you provide to us will be transferred to Australia. By using the Website and by providing us Information when using our services, you hereby irrevocably consent to this transfer and our use of the Information and data provided by you in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

 

CHILDREN

We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 13 through the Website. If you are under 13, please do not give us any Personal Information. We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s Internet usage and to help enforce our Privacy Policy by instructing their children to never provide Personal Information through the Website without their permission. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Information to us, please contact us, and we will endeavour to delete that information from our databases.

 

EXTERNAL WEBSITES

The Website may contain links to third-party websites. We have no control over the privacy practices or the content of any of our business partners, advertisers, sponsors, or other websites to which we provide links. As such, we are not responsible for the content or the privacy policies of those third-party websites. You should check the applicable third-party privacy policy and terms of use when visiting any other websites.

 

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy is effective as of the date stated at the top of this Privacy Policy. We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. By accessing the Website and/or using our services after we make any such changes to this Privacy Policy, you are deemed to have accepted such changes. Please be aware that, to the extent permitted by applicable law, our use of the Information is governed by the Privacy Policy in effect at the time we collect the Information. Please refer back to this Privacy Policy on a regular basis.

 

HOW TO CONTACT US

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us via email at enquiries@hobartcounselling.com.au with “Privacy Policy” in the subject line.

 

LAST UPDATED OCTOBER 2024