Next Steps in Supported Employment: consultation on the way forward Paper – Privacy Collection Notice
Your personal information is protected by law, including under the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act).
The Department of Social Services (Department, we, us, our), collects personal information about individuals for a range of purposes to enable it to carry out its functions.
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 for this Consultation.
Purpose of this Consultation
The purpose of this Consultation Paper is to seek views on the way forward to improve employment outcomes for people with disability and high support needs, in the context of current reforms and recent policy recommendations from the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.
The Consultation Paper includes a number of questions on which we seek your feedback (see Discussion and Next Steps). We invite you to share your views by addressing some or all of the questions outlined in the Consultation Paper.
You can provide your response to the questions in the Consultation Paper to us in writing (word document or PDF) or through an audio or video recording and uploading any of these to our DSS Engage platform. You may also email your submission to us instead.
We do not ask for you to provide your name, phone number or address in your submission and you can submit your feedback to us anonymously or using an alias. This may limit our ability to further engage with you in respect to your submission.
However, as submissions can be emailed to the Department or can be in an audio or video format, in many cases the submissions will include some of your personal information such as your name, email address, voice or image, and other identity details. The Department will collect this personal and sensitive information where you have included it. 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.
The Department does not intend to publish submissions on DSS Engage and your personal information will not be disclosed overseas.
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.
Sensitive information is a subset of personal information. It includes information or an opinion about your 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 (including information about any disabilities you may have), genetic or biometric information.
What we collect
Through your submission to the Consultation paper, we may collect a range of your personal information (some of which could be sensitive information) including your:
- name;
- organisation name;
- email address;
- any sensitive information that you share (for example types of disabilities that you may have, if you are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, your racial or ethnic origin, whether you identify as LGBTQIA+ or if you are a member of a trade union or association);
- your voice or image if you have provided an audio or video submission; and
- views on the future state of supported employment.
We may also collect other personal information and sensitive information from you if you include that information in your responses to questions
How we collect your information
Your personal information relating to your personal views will be collected if you choose to make a submission to the Consultation Paper. We will do this by collecting information from you directly through an email submission or the Make a Submission form on this site.
We may sometime collect your personal and sensitive information from another person where you have consented to them sharing that information with us or they are otherwise authorised to consent on your behalf.
Please only include information about other people in your submission with their consent or if you are otherwise authorised to consent on their behalf.
Why we collect your personal information
Your personal information is collected for the purposes of seeking feedback on shaping the way forward for supported and open employment, particularly options for increasing inclusive employment, raising subminimum wages, and ending segregated employment.
Some of the information collected by us from our targeted or public consultations or surveys has research value in developing policies that extend beyond the specific consultation or survey for which it was originally collected. Where this is the case, the information that we collect from this consultation may be used for our other research purposes. In doing so, we will apply the Australian Privacy Principles to the handling of any personal information.
Who we disclose your personal information to
Your response and any personal or sensitive information collected from this Consultation process is accessible to Department staff involved in the relevant Consultation process. We may use your personal information in our reports, program and policy design and other publications on the Government’s responses on the recommendations. We may also use or disclose your personal and sensitive information to the following people, organisations or third parties:
- our Ministers;
- other commonwealth agencies with relevant interest in the consultation (for example the National Disability Insurance Agency, Services Australia and Department of Employment and Workplace Relations);
- entities contracted to support us in this Consultation or provide services to assist us in developing supported employment initiatives;
- our ICT Contracted Service Provider, for the purposes of assisting the Department to administer DSS Engage platform and providing the Department with other information technology services; and
- other parties where the disclosure is required or authorised by law. If we receive information in response to this Consultation that indicates there is a risk of harm to the respondent or another person, we are required to report it under Australian Law. This may include referral to the relevant state or territory authorities, in line with the relevant state, territory and Commonwealth legislation.
All entities contracted by us are subject to strict confidentiality, privacy and security obligations.
Any other outputs or reports produced will be de-identified before disclosure or distribution.
More information
More information about how we store and handle your personal and sensitive information, how to seek access to or correction of or to complain about the handling of your personal information is set out in our Privacy Policy. If you have any concerns or questions, you can contact us at privacy@dss.gov.au
Confirmation and consent
By providing personal information as part of your Consultation response, you consent to the Department’s collection and handling of personal information in accordance with this collection notice and the Department’s Privacy Policy.
Please note that you do not need to provide sensitive information if you do not wish to do so.
By providing sensitive information as part of your Consultation response, you consent to the Department collecting your sensitive information and handling your sensitive information in accordance with this collection notice and the Department’s Privacy Policy.