Safe Places Emergency Accommodation Program – Inclusion Round – Privacy Notice
Your personal information is protected by law, including under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act).
The Department of Social Services (department, we, us), collects personal information about individuals for a range of purposes to enable it to carry out its functions. More information about how we handle your personal information is set out in our Privacy Policy.
This privacy collection notice is designed to ensure you are aware of certain matters in relation to the department’s collection of your personal information, as required by the Privacy Act.
What is the purpose of this Consultation?
The department is inviting stakeholders to provide their views on the grant design and implementation of the Safe Places Emergency Accommodation program Inclusion Round (the Inclusion Round).
We have designed the Consultation to obtain views from stakeholders prior to finalisation of grant opportunity guidelines and the opening of the grant round.
As part of this Consultation, you may wish to provide a written submission. If you make a submission, you will be asked to provide information, including personal information. It is your choice what personal information you provide to us. You are not required to provide any personal information to make a submission.
The department’s intention is for participants to not be identified or be reasonably identifiable. However, this may not always be possible due to various factors (e.g. free text boxes and the nature of the questions asked). Where we are able to identify you or another person (or reasonably identify you or another person) from your response, we will handle your response in accordance with the Privacy Act.
We may collect, or have already collected, your information (including any personal information) for one or more of the above purposes. This notice is designed to ensure you are aware of the purpose and certain matters in relation to that collection, as required by the Privacy Act.
As part of this Consultation, your information may be disclosed to external consultants who may be engaged to assist the department to analyse information collected through consultation and inform the design of the program.
What is ‘personal information’ and ‘sensitive information’?
‘Personal information’ is information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable. This applies whether the personal information is true or not and whether the personal information is recorded in a material form or not. For example, personal information can include an individual’s name, signature, residential address, phone number, email address, date of birth, photographs, employment information, location information from mobile devices and internet protocol addresses.
‘Sensitive information’ is a subset of personal information. It includes information or an opinion about an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of associations or unions, sexual orientation or practices, criminal record, or health, genetic or biometric information. Health information includes any information regarding whether an individual has a disability and the nature of their disability.
Who is collecting your personal information?
Your personal information is being collected by the department and by Services Australia, who will be assisting the department with some of the information technology (IT) aspects of the Consultation.
What personal information we collect
Through your participation in the Consultation, we may collect some personal information (some of which could be sensitive information) if you choose to provide that information to us.
The personal information we will ask for, but is optional to provide, includes:
- name or other identifying information (you can choose to use a pseudonym);
- email address;
- whether you are responding as an individual or on behalf of an organisation;
- the name of the organisation that you represent, if applicable;
- if you work as a service provider, advocate or at a peak body;
- location information, such as your state or territory, and if that is remote/regional/metro;
- identity details, including if you identify as having a disability, ethnicity, geographic and demographic information
- any feedback and comments you wish to share, such as your experiences with emergency or crisis accommodation or family and domestic violence services; and
- your personal views on the Discussion Paper, including responses to discussion questions.
Please only provide information that you are comfortable to provide.
As part of the Consultation, we will not ask for you to provide your phone number or home address.
You can also choose to provide your own contact details or details of your personal circumstances. Where we are able to identify you (or reasonably identify you) from your response, we will handle your response in accordance with the Privacy Act as it will be ‘personal information’.
We will collect your information (including any personal information) for one or more of the purposes specified in this Privacy Notice.
The personal information that Services Australia will collect is your IP address and information about your device’s operating system.
How we collect your personal information
Your personal information relating to your personal views and lived experience may be collected if you choose to make a submission as part of this Consultation. We will do this by:
- collecting information provided by you in your submission lodged through the DSS Engage website; and
- collecting information provided by you in an email or postal submission received from you.
Why we collect your personal information
Your personal information is collected for the purposes of informing the design of the program and ensuring views of relevant stakeholders are incorporated into the design of the grant opportunity.
While you will need to provide an email address and name/pseudonym (or other identifying information) to make a submission, if you do not provide any other personal identifying information (including sensitive information), we will still be able to consider your views and your identity will remain anonymous.
Some of the information collected by us from the Consultations has research value in developing policies that extend beyond the specific consultation process for which it was originally collected. Where this is the case, the information we collect from this Consultation may be used for our other related research and policy development purposes. In doing so, we will handle your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act.
Who we disclose your personal information to
We may disclose your personal information to the following people, organisations or third parties:
- other entities contracted to provide services to assist us with the development of the program, where required (which may include entities contracted to the department to provide information technology, research, accessibility, analysis and editing services);
- individuals within agencies, organisations and bodies that will be working with the department on the development of the program, including Ministers and their staff, state and territory governments, and advisory groups to the Australian Government;
- Services Australia, for the purposes of assisting the department to administer the DSS Engage website and providing the department with other information technology services; and
- other parties where the disclosure is authorised by law.
All entities contracted by us are subject to strict confidentiality, privacy and security obligations.
When making a submission, we ask you if you consent to your submission being made public on the DSS engage website and if you consent to your name being included in the publication of your submission on the DSS Engage website. If you do agree, the information you provide in your submission, including personal information, may be published and be made publicly available on the DSS Engage website. Public submissions and details of their author may also be referenced by the department in public forums and documents.
If you do not want your submission or personal information to be published on the DSS engage website, we will still be able to consider your views and your identity will remain anonymous.
We will not publish your submission if we consider (for any reason) that it should not be made public. We may redact parts of your submission before publication, as appropriate. This may occur in circumstances where the submission contains information that is not relevant to this Consultation, contains personal or sensitive information, could potentially defame others, is offensive in nature, or contains operationally sensitive information.
If your submission raises specific comments in relation to a serious threat to the life, health or safety of any individual, or to public health or safety, your submission may be referred to the appropriate enforcement agency for the purpose of lessening or preventing a serious threat to the life, health or safety of any individual, or to public health or safety, in accordance with the Privacy Act.
No information about you will be disclosed overseas unless your submission is published or made publicly available, or your information is disclosed to an external consultant or contractor.
Storage of personal information
Storage of personal information (and the disposal of information when no longer required) is managed in accordance with the Australian Government records management regime, including the Archives Act 1983, agency-specific records authorities and general records authorities. This ensures your personal information is held securely.
All personal information collected that is held by the department is stored on Services Australia’s cloud storage, on servers located in Australia. Services Australia and the department retains effective control over any personal information held on our cloud, and the information is handled in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles.
Any information disclosed to external consultants will be handled in accordance with the Privacy Act and stored in accordance with agreed security protocols.
More information
Our Privacy Policy contains more information about how the department handles personal information, how you can access any personal information that we hold and how to seek correction of that personal information. It also contains information about how to make a complaint about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles, as set out in the Privacy Act.
If you have any concerns or questions, you can contact us at privacy@dss.gov.au.
Confirmation and consent
By providing your personal information as part of your Consultation response, you consent to the department collecting your personal information and handling your personal information in accordance with this privacy notice and the department’s privacy policy.