Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Statement describes how we collect, use, store and disclose personal information when you interact with our website.

When used in this Statement, "personal information" has the meaning given in the Privacy Act. Generally, it means any information or an opinion that could be used to identify you.

Privacy and using this site

The Murrumbidgee, Mental Health, Drug and Alcohol Alliance (‘the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance’) website is owned and operated by Grand Pacific Health on behalf of the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance, using software licensed from Social Pinpoint Pty Ltd (ACN 164 471 425).

The site aims to provide information about the work of the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance and its member organisations and connect with people who have lived/living experience of mental health, drug or alcohol challenges living in the Murrumbidgee region.

This Privacy Statement applies to the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website specifically and provides details on how we collect and protect your personal information as part of your use of this site. This Privacy Statement does not apply to any other aspects of your interactions with Grand Pacific Health or other organisations that form part of the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance (e.g. when you are receiving a health service).

The personal information gathered through your interaction with the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website is only for the purpose of your participation in this site and the activities listed. Your information and activities on the site are not recorded in your health records with any organisation involved.

By providing personal information and/or continuing to use the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website you consent to your personal information being collected, used and disclosed in accordance with this Privacy Statement and you also agree to the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website Terms of Use and Moderation and Community Guidelines.

How is your privacy protected?

Grand Pacific Health and the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance takes the privacy of those using this site very seriously.

A person’s right to privacy as established under the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (PPIP Act) is respected and protected by Grand Pacific Health and the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance.

Grand Pacific Health and the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance do not allow the publication of information that may identify individuals or that might potentially identify them.

Any statistical data about the use and management of Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance member organisations, services or projects, and the health of the population are made available on this website in the interest of the public.

Links to other sites are sometimes included in information for the convenience of site users, but the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance does not have any responsibility for the privacy practices of third party sites or organisations.

Grand Pacific Health Privacy Policies

Grand Pacific Health observes the information privacy principles set out in Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (PPIP Act) when collecting and dealing with any personal information and the health privacy principles set out in the Health Records and Information Privacy Act (HRIP) Act 2002 when collecting and dealing with any health information.

Grand Pacific Health has a Privacy Policy which identifies how their services comply with the Privacy Act.

Their Privacy Statement outlines how they collect and store information about you to protect your privacy.

Social Pinpoint Privacy Policies

For details of how Social Pinpoint Pty Ltd collects, protects, discloses, stores and uses personal information, please refer to their Privacy Policy.

What information do we collect?

We collect information about you and your use of the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website. The type of information we collect will vary depending on how you interact with the website.

We will only collect personal information if it is necessary to carry out the functions of the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website.

We will always take reasonable steps to provide you with options about what information you share.

Site visitor data

The Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website collects information for statistical and system administration purposes. This includes:

  • Your server (or IP) address
  • The day and time you visited this site
  • The pages that you access within the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website including how long you spend on each
  • Your route through the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website (the sequence of pages and other content that you visit)
  • The operating system you are using
  • Any documents, images or videos that you download from the service
  • Your rough geographic location
  • The language of your browser
  • Your internet service provider
  • The type of browser and version you are using.

The Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance and Grand Pacific Health will not attempt to identify individuals from the records the server automatically generates unless necessary to investigate a breach of law or regulation.

Cookies

Cookies are used on our site, but they do not collect any personal information. For the most part they are sessional and contain system-generated values to identify the user's session for statistical and system administration purposes only.

We collect the data and information through a combination of Google Analytics, server logs and tools within the functionality of the site, using data security protocols.

Registration

You can choose to register for the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website to receive updates on:

  • projects you have taken part in
  • projects you ‘follow’
  • other news or opportunities based on your topics of interest.

Some projects on the website require you to be registered in order to take part. An alternative method of taking part will also be provided.

To register you need to provide:

  • Your full name
  • Username (visible to others when you make comment or post on project pages. This must not include identifying information)
  • Password (private to you and not visible to the administration team)
  • Email address
  • Contact phone number
  • Postcode
  • Year of birth (you must be aged 16 or over to register)
  • Comments
  • Votes
  • Survey responses
  • Ideas and suggestions
  • Images

Optional registration information includes:

  • Topics that you are interested in receiving updates from us about
  • Organisations that you are interested in receiving updates from us about
  • Which member category you identify with (lived experience, care experience, peer work or health professional)

Email addresses provided to this website will only be used to respond to contact from you or provide you with updates relating to your participation and interest areas. Your email address will not be added to mailing lists or disclosed to any other party without your consent, unless we are required to do so by law.

Participating in a project activity

Participation activities on the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website are conducted by organisations which are members of the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance for the purposes of guiding, improving or evaluating their services. They use online tools built into the Social Pinpoint software (e.g. surveys, comments, polls) to gather feedback and experiences.

We collect information that you provide via these participation tools. This may include:

Communication

Any communication that you send to us via email, text or in phone conversation will be documented and stored in a secure area within the Grand Pacific Health filing system in accordance with the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (PPIP Act).

Public Comment

To protect the safety of the community and ensure that the website is a safe space for all participants, content submitted to areas of the website which will be visible to other website visitors will be moderated by the site administrators from Grand Pacific Health before being published.

Content deemed to be inappropriate, or offensive will be removed in line with our Moderation and Community Guidelines.

How will we use your information?

We use the personal information about you to:

  • administer the site and manage your account
  • identify when you sign into your account
  • send you updates and information, but only when you have agreed to us sending you this information or when the information is necessary to assist with the administration of the site
  • respond to queries that you have contacted us about
  • attribute content that you post on the site to you
  • analyse use of the site to inform ongoing improvements and enhancements
  • inform the policy decisions, service delivery or project development of Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance organisations
  • for any other purposes that we indicate to you when we request your personal information.

Content you submit during participation

The information provided through the online tools when you take part in a participation activity will be collated and provided in a report to the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance organisation overseeing that project. This is so that they can act on the feedback received by you and other participants and use this to make decisions about the project.

You will not be identified as part of this report, unless it is necessary for the project team to be able to contact you (for example, if you are applying to be part of a committee or workshop and the team needs to send you more information or confirm your attendance).

Each participation project will let you know:

  • What the project is about and why it is seeking your involvement.
  • What organisation is running the project.
  • Who is leading the project and their contact information.
  • What options are available for you to take part and provide your input.
  • What will happen to the information or feedback you provide.
  • Important dates and stages of the project.

What information is publicly available?

Most of the information that you provide to us cannot be seen by other users or visitors to the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website. Information that can be seen is considered ‘publicly available.’

Publicly available information

Publicly available information includes your username (chosen by you) and comments you leave under that name when you take part in activities which involve sharing information with other visitors to the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website. This might include noticeboards, forums, brainstorming activities and voting tools.

To protect your privacy, we require that you choose a username that does not include personal identifying information (e.g. real name, location) and that you do not include any identifying information in your comments. Any identifying information will not be published to the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website.

Reports of collated responses and statistics from participation activities may be made publicly available or shared with third parties (e.g. contractors assisting with project development or relevant stakeholders). Any comments submitted by you included in these reports will be de-identified. Statistics and collated feedback will not include any identifying information.

Information available to both Grand Pacific Health site administrators and Social Pinpoint Pty Ltd includes:

  • all information from the registration form
  • comments, questions, posts
  • survey responses, quick poll responses, map pins
  • general site activity such as document downloads, videos viewed, images viewed etc.
  • information on the technology used to access the site.

Storing and disclosing personal information

Personal information will be kept in safe custody, sufficient to prevent unauthorised access, and will be properly handled to ensure its safety, integrity and confidentiality. Circumstances in which Grand Pacific Health may be required to disclose this information to a law enforcement agency include:

  • Unauthorised tampering or interference with files published on the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website;
  • Unauthorised attempts to access files which are not published on the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website;
  • Attempts to intercept messages of other users of the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website;
  • Communications which are defamatory, abusive, vilify individuals or give rise to a suspicion that an offence is being committed;
  • Attempts to otherwise compromise the security of the web server or breach the laws of the State of NSW or the Commonwealth of Australia
  • Any requested information to a court or regulatory body as required by law.

Data security and destruction

Under the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (PPIP Act), we have a responsibility to protect your personal information. We take reasonable steps to make sure that your personal information is protected from misuse, loss, and unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure.

Further, any personal information that we collect and use for identifying user trends is aggregated and anonymised when generating reports.

To protect your own privacy, your password for the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website should be kept confidential, and must not be displayed, shared or written down.

Concerns regarding your safety

If, during your use of the Murrumbidgee MHDA Alliance website (including information you send to the email address or in phone conversations or messages), you share information with us that gives us reasonable cause to be concerned about your immediate safety, or the safety of another person, we may disclose this information, relevant personal details and website usage information to other organisations (such as Emergency Services) for the purposes of ensuring that you are safe.

When will we contact you?

We may send you information and announcements that we think will be of interest to you by email. If you give us permission, we may also call you on the phone number you provide to discuss your participation or expressed interest in a project or activity.

You can choose to receive communication and other updates from us by email. If you choose this but then change your mind, you can unsubscribe at any time by following the process set out in the emails and newsletters that we send you. You can also log into your profile on the website and change your contact details and communication preferences, at any time.

Who do I contact for more information?

If you have any questions about the privacy of your information, you can contact:

What if you have a complaint?

If you wish to make a complaint about a breach of this Privacy Statement, please contact the Grand Pacific Health Privacy Officer on privacy@gph.org.au

We will investigate your complaint and conduct an internal review if requested.

Changes to our Privacy Statement

We may update the content of this Privacy Statement from time to time for any reason. The updated version of the Privacy Statement will apply to you as soon as it is posted on the website, so we suggest that you regularly review the Privacy Statement.

This statement was updated on 12 May 2025.