Privacy

Please read our Statement of Privacy for full details of how we collect and use information.

Our commitment

At the FPA we recognise that your privacy is very important to you – it is to the FPA as well. We handle personal information provided by and about people every day. By personal information we mean information or an opinion about a person whose identity is apparent or can reasonably be ascertained.

The aim of the FPA is both to support and to ensure that it complies with the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) that form the basis of laws introduced to strengthen privacy protection for the general public including its members. The FPA also seeks to comply with the Spam Act that is aimed at reducing the number of unsolicited electronic commercial messages that you receive.

The information set out below is largely a summary of our obligations under the NPPs.

We believe that this Statement will address any potential concerns you may have about how personal information you provide the FPA is collected, held, used, corrected, disclosed and transferred. You can obtain more information on request about the way we manage the personal information we hold. If you seek any further information please contact us in one of the ways set out below.

Collection

In the course of our activities we collect and hold personal information such as details of FPA members, students, meeting/conference attendees and course providers. Our main purposes for collecting that personal information include to assess the suitability of applicants for membership of the FPA and to update our records, to facilitate the enrolment in or assessment of courses of study, to disseminate by electronic means or otherwise topical information and details of events of interest (including conferences and educational services), to regulate the activities of members, to investigate complaints made against members for alleged breaches of professional standards and to facilitate the provision of a referral service to interested members of the public. We will only collect personal information from you that is necessary for one or more of our functions and activities.

We will only collect personal information from you by lawful and fair means, without being unreasonably intrusive, such as when you complete a membership application or update form, enrolment form, registration form or questionnaire etc. At or before the time we collect personal information from you we will take reasonable steps to inform you why we are collecting that personal information, who else we might disclose that personal information to and what will happen if you do not provide personal information to us.

Where reasonable and practicable, we will only collect personal information about you, from you.

Wherever it is lawful and practicable, we will give you the option of not identifying yourself or not providing personal information when entering transactions with us. However, failure to provide full and complete information we request may mean that we are unable to provide services to you fully and properly.

Once we hold personal information we will take reasonable steps to keep it accurate, complete and up-to-date.

Use and disclosure

We will only use your personal information for the main purpose we told you it was needed for, except where you consent to us using that personal information for another purpose, where the other purpose is related to the main purpose and you would reasonably expect us to use the personal information for that other purpose, or where it is permitted or required by law, or we reasonably believe it is necessary on health or public safety grounds to use the personal information for another purpose.

In order to fulfil the purposes set out above we may provide access to your personal information to third parties with whom we have a business relationship, for example those who maintain and update our database, who assist with mail-outs, who arrange, participate in and sponsor conferences and who deliver educational and other services. Where you make a complaint against a member of the FPA for alleged breaches of professional standards, we may also disclose your personal information to the member to facilitate the investigation of the complaint. You accept that not all recipients of your information may have privacy policies equivalent to the FPA’s and you consent to the disclosure of your personal information for those purposes.

In relation to direct marketing, where practicable we will seek your consent before we use your personal information for this purpose. You may tell us at any time you do not wish to receive any further direct marketing materials – if you do, we will stop sending you such materials.

In accordance with the Spam Act, should you wish to unsubscribe from commercial electronic messages from the FPA, all future commercial electronic messages from the FPA will enable you to unsubscribe from that particular type of electronic message from the FPA and this can be done at any time. If you do not unsubscribe, the FPA will continue to send you relevant information of the types described above. The FPA may also use messaging methods other than email.

Access and correction

If you ask, we will tell you what personal information we hold about you, and what we do with it. We will facilitate access to you by allowing an inspection of your personal information in person, or by providing copies or a summary of relevant documents, depending on what is most appropriate in the circumstances, following receipt of your request. Any charge we make for providing access will be reasonable.

If you can show us that the personal information is inaccurate, we will take reasonable steps to correct it. Note that we need not provide access to personal information in several types of situation, for example where a request is frivolous, or where to provide access would pose a threat to health or public safety, unreasonably interfere with another person’s privacy, or be a breach of the law. If we refuse access we will advise you of our reasons for doing so.

Security

We will protect personal information from misuse and loss, and destroy or permanently de-identify personal information we no longer need.

Cookies

When you visit our website, details may be recorded about your visit, such as time and date, your server address, pages accessed, time spent and type of browser. This information is used in an anonymous form for statistical purposes and as such cannot identify you individually.

We may use cookies to identify your browser so that next time you visit our website we remember your log in details. A cookie is a small file which remains on your computer and contains information enabling our website to recognise your browser. If you do not wish to use cookies, you can adjust the settings on your browser to reject cookies or notify you when they are being used.

Identifiers

We will not adopt as our own any identifiers that you may provide to us such as TFNs, Medicare numbers etc.

Sending data overseas and third party websites

We will not send any personal information about you overseas unless you consent to this, or we reasonably believe that the other country has privacy laws substantially similar to our own, or we provide the information in other circumstances giving like protection.

Our website contains a number of links to other websites, including the websites of our commercial partners. When this occurs be sure to check the privacy policy of those websites as we are not responsible for privacy practices of those other parties.

Complaints resolution

We are committed to providing members, and other parties whose personal information we hold, a fair and responsible system for the handling of their complaints.

If at any time you have any complaints in relation to privacy, please contact our Privacy Officer at one of the points referred to below. We will seek to address any concerns that you have through our complaints handling processes, but if you wish to take matters further you may refer your concerns to the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner.

Contact us

If you seek any further information from the FPA about this Statement or our privacy policy generally please contact our Privacy Officer at one of the reference points below: fpa@fpa.asn.au

Level 4, 75 Castlereagh Street, Sydney NSW 2000 or GPO Box 4285, Sydney NSW 2001

Telephone: 02 9220 4500 or 1300 337 301; Facsimile: 02 9220 4580.

Further information on privacy in Australia may be obtained by visiting the web site of the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.gov.au