Effective date: 19th September 2022
www.mindgutclinic.com.au (the “Site”) is owned and operated by Dr Simone Peters.
The Mind and Gut Specialist Clinic Pty Ltd (ACN610 537 632) (Mind + Gut, us/we/our), treats the privacy and security of your personal information very seriously.
This Privacy Policy (Policy) describes how Mind + Gut collects, uses and discloses the personal information that we collect from you when you access and use Our Products and Services, being:
· our website, located at www.mindandgut.com.au (Website);
· our medical treatment and counselling services; and
· our other products and services.
We are bound to comply with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988(Cth) (Privacy Act) and the Health Privacy Principles in the HealthRecords Act 2001 (Vic) (HR Act).
Where we say “personal information” in this Policy, this has the same meaning as provided under the Privacy Act. When we say “health information” in this Policy, this is the same meaning provided under the Privacy Act and HR Act.
If we change the terms of this Policy, we will display the changes on our Website, or otherwise notify you in writing.
Mind + Gut may collect your personal information in the following ways:
· where you have requested Our Products and Services;
· where you have enquired about Our Products and Services or otherwise communicate with us in person, in writing or by telephone;
· through the use of browser “cookies” or trackers when you access our Website;
· from third parties that have disclosed your personal information to us, for example when you are referred to us by your GP or other medical practitioners; and
· in such other situations, where we collect personal information that is reasonably necessary for the proper supply of Our Products and Services.
We will only collect your personal information from you, unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so. If we collect your personal information from a third party, and you may not be aware of this collection, we will take steps to notify you about this which are reasonable in the circumstances (if any). If we collect your personal information from a third party in a confidential setting, this is a circumstance where it would not be reasonable for us to notify you about the collection of your personal information from that third party.
If you are not 15 years of age or over, you should only provide us with your personal information if your parent or guardian has consented to the collection of that information on your behalfin accordance with this Policy.
The types of personal information we collect depends on your relationship with us and the nature of your interaction with us. In general, Mind + Gut may collect the following types of personal information:
· names, addresses, dates of birth, postcodes, e-mail addresses, contact phone numbers, emergency contact details, Medicare details;
· information about your medical symptoms and diagnoses;
· credit card details for payments; and
· other personal information that you may voluntarily provide to us in using the Website, requesting Our Products and Services or otherwise communicating with us.
You may elect not to provide any personal information to us, or use a pseudonym. If this occurs, it may compromise our ability to provide you with Our Products and Services and respond with you.
If you supply us with any personal information that we did not solicit, and that information is not reasonably necessary for us to hold in connection with one of our functions oractivities, we will destroy or de-identify any copies of that information as soon as practicable after it has been provided to us.
Do we collect health information and other types of sensitive information?
Yes. We may collect sensitive information from you. Sensitive information is a sub-set of personal information that includes (among other things):
· health information, such as information about your physical, mental of psychological health;
· information thatreveals your racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs or sexual orientation.
We collect sensitiveinformation only where reasonably necessary to provide Our Products andServices to you.
Where it ispracticable to do so, we will seek your consent before we collect any sensitiveinformation from you for the purposes described above. Your consent to thecollection of sensitive information may be implied in the circumstances.
If you supply yourpersonal information to us, we may collect, hold and use that information forthe following purposes:
· as necessary to provide Our Products and Services to you, including for developingand providing treatment plans for you, delivering treatments to you, and taking payment for Our Products and Services;
· tofulfil any legal obligations we have in relation to your personal information;
· disclosingthat information confidentially to another health services provider or otherthird party with your consent;
· toinform you of any updates to Our Products and Services or changes to thePolicy; and
· forany other secondary purposes where you might reasonably expect us to use yourpersonal information, which are related to the primary purposes listed above.
We will not disclose your personal information for reasons other than those listed above unless:
· youhave consented to that specific disclosure;
· thereare reasonable grounds to believe that disclosure is necessary to prevent orlessen a threat to your life or health or that of another person;
· thedisclosure is reasonably necessary for the establishment, exercise or defenceof a legal or equitable claim; or
· thedisclosure is permitted, required or authorised by law.
Mind + Gut stores your electronic personalinformation using third party platforms and cloud storage service providers (ThirdParty Providers). Our Third Party Providers adopt a variety of reasonablesafeguards to protect personal information which they store on our behalf frommisuse or unauthorised access or disclosure. We also restrict access to yourelectronic personal information to authorised personnel only and implementpassword protection for accessing personal information. However, data securitymeasures can never be guaranteed and there are inherent risks in transmittingany information, including your personal information, over the internet.
Mind + Gut storesyour hard-copy personal information in secure rooms in our clinic. We take allreasonable steps to protect your hard-copy personal information from misuse orunauthorised access, for example by storing your personal information in securefiling rooms at our premises, and restricting access to your personalinformation to authorised personnel only.
We will only retainyour personal information for as long as we have a genuine business need to doso. For example, we will retain your personal information while we areproviding you with Our Products and Services. Once we no longer need to retainyour personal information, we will destroy or de-identify that informationafter a reasonable period of time, unless we are required by law to retain it(such as under the HR Act for health information).
Yourpersonal information may be used by us to:
· marketand offer Our Products and Services to you;
· notifyyou of new developments and updates relating to Our Products and Services;and/or
· makeother promotional communications to you, including by e-mail or telephone.
We will only send youdirect marketing communications if you have opted-in for this. If you do notwish to receive direct marketing communications from us, you may opt-out at anytime by following the unsubscribe link in our electronic promotionalcommunications, or contacting us with your request at info@mindgutclinic.com.au.
We will not discloseyour personal information to third parties to enable those parties to directlymarket their products or services to you unless you have expressly consented tothat disclosure.
Do we send yourpersonal information to third parties located outside of Australia?
If you supply yourpersonal information to us, it may be stored by our Third Party Providers. Asour Third Party Providers operate globally, we cannot say with certainty wheretheir servers are located or the countries out of which they operate at any giventime. Further, these locations may be subject to change by our Third PartyProviders without notice to us.
By supplying yourpersonal information to us, you consent to storage of your personal informationby our Third Party Providers in any location in the world.
We will not discloseyour personal information to any party located outside of Australia withoutyour express prior consent (other than for the purpose of storing thatinformation on our behalf).
Do we collectpersonal information through cookies or trackers?
When you visit ourWebsite, we may collect information about your computer/device, IP address,location, pages viewed on our Website, and time spent on our Website, usingbrowser “cookies”. These are small text files placed on your device.
We collectinformation from cookies to improve the operation of our Website, to direct youto the most appropriate content and to remember your preferences for the nexttime you access our Website. By using our Website, your consent to our use of cookiesin accordance with this Policy. You are able to opt-out of cookie technologythrough changing the settings on your browser. However, this may affectthe way you experience our Website.
We may use thefollowing analytics services:
· GoogleAnalytics – This service collects data aboutour Website users as part of our information gathering processes (for furtherdetails, see www.google.com/analytics/).Google Analytics only provides us with aggregated data and does not identifyany user personally.
· MetaPixel – This service collects data about yourinteractions with our Website by using “tracking pixels”. This data is thenused to serve targeted advertisements for Our Products and Services to you andothers on Facebook and Instagram, and measure the success of our Facebook andInstagram advertising campaigns by reporting on the actions people take afterclicking our advertisements on Facebook and Instagram. Any data disclosed to usby this service cannot be used to identify you personally. You can opt-out ofreceiving targeted advertisements on Facebook and Instagram through thesettings for your user account.
We do not merge any ofyour personal information with data obtained through browser cookies, MetaPixel or Google Analytics.
This Policy appliessolely to personal information we collect from you. We are not responsible forthe collection of personal information and/or the privacy practices of anythird parties, including by our payment services providers, analytics servicesused on our Website, or websites which may be linked on our Website.
For more informationabout how relevant third parties will collect, store and use your personalinformation, you should read their privacy policies.
You may request acopy of your personal information that we hold.
We may refuse toprovide you with a copy of your personal information that we hold, in certaincircumstances set out in the Privacy Act and HR Act (related to access to yourhealth information).
We will takereasonable steps to correct any of your personal information that we hold wherethe information is inaccurate or out of date, if you have requested us tocorrect the information.
If we refuse your request to provide you with a copy of your personal information that we hold,or correct your personal information that we hold, we will give you writtennotice of our refusal with supporting reasons.
If you have any questions or concerns about our handling of your personal information or this policy, you can contact us in the following ways (addressed to the privacy officer):
· Email:info@mindgutclinic.com.au
· Post:354 Inkerman Street, St Kilda East, Victoria 3183, Australia
If you have a complaint or a privacy-related concern in relation to our business or this policy, please provide us with the opportunity to resolve the matter by contacting us using the method outlined above. Once we have received a complaint or privacy-related concern, we will try to work with you to resolve the matter.
Should you not be satisfied with the resolution of any complaints made to us, you are able to seek further redress through the Office of the Australian information commissioner (see www.oaic.gov.au).
