Collection, use and disclosure of your personal information
If you are an applicant or a tenant, we need to collect personal information such as your name, address, contact details and other personal information so that we can assess your application or manage your tenancy. We collect this by telephone, in person, in writing or by email.
All information about your application or tenancy is kept in our office either in your tenant file or computer record. Information collected includes your application, lease, condition reports, rent reviews and all correspondence between you and the office. This information is mainly used by your housing worker and other RHHCH workers when the need arises. We emphasise that staff are committed to respecting your privacy.
No information contained in your file, including your name, address or telephone number will be divulged to anyone outside the office, except when there is a need to:
In some instances, you may want us to supply personal details to agents not listed above. Please contact our office prior to the need for releasing such information. Our preferred option is for you to supply our office with prior written authority.
From time to time, a sample of tenant files may be inspected by external auditors or evaluators. This is done in order to ensure that proper records are being kept and that we are operating in accordance with guidelines corresponding to best practice. The audit and evaluation teams are required to keep all of your information confidential and use it exclusively for auditing and evaluative purposes. If you do not want your file to be examined during such occasions, please inform the RHHCH office in writing.
We use contractors to help us do our maintenance or other work and may need to disclose personal information such as name and contact details to our contractors to enable them to carry out this work.
We might also use contractors to carry out other business activities on our behalf such as accounting, auditing, banking, building inspections and other administration or management functions and we may disclose personal information to those contractors for only those purposes.
We might also have to disclose your personal information under laws, for other legal reasons, to law enforcement agencies or in emergencies.
In certain circumstances we might collect information that is sensitive information under the Privacy Act. For instance, we need to know some information about a customer’s health status in relation to the assessing their application or managing their tenancy . We will seek your consent when collecting this information from you.
If you call our office when we are out, you may choose to leave a message on our answering machine which will record the call. We do not disclose these to anyone outside RHHCH or its contractors and delete them when no longer necessary.
Information we receive for employment applications will be retained securely by us and may be disclosed to our agents or contractors for the purposes of considering your application.
Information we receive for applications for membership of the co-operative as an ordinary member or Board member will be retained securely by us and may be disclosed to our agents or contractors for the purposes of considering your application.
If you contact us on any other matter, such as a compliment or complaint, or seeking information, we will use the information you give us for the purpose for which you provided it. This may include replying to you and forwarding your information to contractors providing services to us so that we can respond to you. We might also need to access our existing records about you, or previous information you have provided to us if it assists in responding to your matter. Personal details you send to us in these circumstances will not be added to a mailing list or used for any other purpose without your consent.
Security
We will take reasonable steps to protect personal information we hold from misuse and loss from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.
Access and correction
You are entitled to access your personal information on request, unless exceptional circumstances specified in the Privacy Act apply (for example where access would unreasonably interfere with the privacy of others). In some circumstances, we may ask you to apply in writing.
We will need to confirm your identity before we can provide you with access to personal information we hold about you. If exceptional circumstances apply and we are entitled to refuse to give you access, we will explain this to you. We encourage you to let us know if you believe any personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. Unless we disagree with you we will update our records. If we disagree with you, and you request us to do so, we may include a statement to the effect that you claim the information is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date with our records.
If you would like access to your records, please call our office for an appointment on 02 9808 3545.
Our Website
Our website is owned and managed by RHHCH and is hosted by an Internet Service Provider.
When you view our website, our Internet Service Provider, automatically makes a record of your visit and may log the following types of information for statistical purposes:
We will not attempt to identify you from these statistics. The information may be used to allow us to improve our services by learning about the parts of our website that are more frequently visited, general patterns of visiting and technologies used. However, a law enforcement agency or other government agency may exercise its legal authority to inspect our Internet Service Provider's logs in certain cases.
We do not use any cookies to monitor your use of our website. If you follow links to other websites, those websites may use cookies.
Email
Sending information to us over the internet is not secure. Other people may be able to intercept or view the information you send. We will not know if this has happened and cannot guarantee security.
If you email us, we will record the information you give us. The information you give us will only be used for the purpose for which you provided it. This may include replying to you and forwarding your email to employees or to contractors providing services so that we can respond to your email. We might also need to access our existing records, or previous information you have provided to us and if it assists in responding to your matter.
Your email address and other personal details you send to us will not be added to a mailing list or used for any other purpose without your consent.
Changes to this Policy
From time to time we may review and change this policy. If so, we will post an amended version of this policy on our website. We recommend you review our online privacy policy whenever you visit our website to ensure you are aware of our current practices concerning the handling of personal information.
Further information
If you have any queries, would like further information or have a complaint concerning your privacy,
please telephone us on 02 9808 3545,
or write to:
The Chief Executive Officer,
Ryde Hunters Hill Community Housing Co-op Ltd
PO Box 361
Ryde NSW 1680,or email us at inquiries@housing.org.au
Last reviewed 20 February 2007