Privacy Statement

Privacy

The Australian Department of Health is committed to protecting your privacy in accordance with the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 including the thirteen Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in that Act. The APPs replaced the old Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) on 12 March 2014.
 

APP Privacy Policy

The Department’s APP privacy policy (required by APP 1.3) can be accessed at The Department’s APP privacy policy web page. The APP privacy policy explains how the Department deals with personal information generally, including its collection, storage, security, access, use and disclosure.
 

Australian Information Commissioner

The Australian Information Commissioner is the statutory office-holder responsible for the regulation of privacy laws in Australia in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website. That website contains more information about the Privacy Act 1988 and includes Australian privacy principles guidelines.
 

Your email address

The Department of Health will only record your email address if you send us a message by email, or if you register requesting notifications by email. If you do not want your email address to be recorded by the Department, you can send a postal mail or facsimile to the address below. Your email address will only be used for the purpose for which you have provided it, and will not be added to any mailing lists without your prior consent by way of a specific request in writing. We will not use or disclose your email address for any other purpose, without your prior written consent.

Cookies

The Department of Health uses 'cookies' for maintaining contact with a user through a website session. A cookie is a small file supplied by the Department, and stored by the web browser software on your computer when you access our site. Cookies allow us to recognise you as an individual web user, as you browse our website.

Two cookie types may be used by this website:

Session cookies

These exist only for the duration of a web browser session with a particular website/host. All cookies will be immediately lost when you end your internet session or shut down your computer. Our copy of your information will be automatically deleted twenty minutes after you last used the system. This information is only used to help you use our website systems more efficiently, not to track your movements through the internet, or to record private information about you.

Persistent cookies

These exist for a defined period of time (usually beyond the termination of the current session) before expiring.
 

Privacy

No personally identifiable information is stored within cookies used by this website. No attempt will be made to identify anonymous users or their browsing activities unless legally compelled to do so, such as in the event of an investigation, where a law enforcement agency may exercise a warrant to inspect the Internet Service Provider's log files.
 

Clickstream data

Any system on this website that records information about you, will specifically ask your permission first.

When you visit this site, the Department of Health makes a record of your visit and logs the following information for statistical or systems administration purposes:

• the user's server address
• the user's top level domain name
• the date and time of access to the site
• pages accessed and documents downloaded
• the previous site visited
• type of browser used

This information is analysed to show broken links in our website, bottlenecks, and other site problems. We use this information to maintain our site for your efficient use.

No attempt will be made to identify users or their browsing activities unless legally compelled to do so, such as in the event of an investigation, where a law enforcement agency may exercise a warrant to inspect the Internet Service Provider’s log files
 

Links to other websites

This website contains links to other sites. The Australian Government is not responsible for the privacy practices of any third parties nor are they responsible for the material contained in a website that is linked to this site.
 

Security

The Department of Health applies a range of security controls to protect its website from unauthorised access. However, users should be aware that the World Wide Web is an insecure public network that gives rise to a potential risk that a user's transactions are being viewed, intercepted or modified by third parties or that files which the user downloads may contain computer viruses, disabling codes, worms or other devices or defects. If you do not wish to email or send an online form to the Department, you can send a postal mail to the address below.

The Commonwealth accepts no liability for any interference with or damage to a user's computer system, software or data occurring in connection with or relating to this web site or its use. Users are encouraged to take appropriate and adequate precautions to ensure that whatever is selected from this site is free of viruses or other contamination that may interfere with or damage the user's computer system, software or data.
 

Queries, concerns and further information

If you have any queries, concerns or require further information (including a copy of our APP privacy policy) relating to privacy and the Department of Health, please email the Department at: (enquiries@health.gov.au).

If you have concerns about emailing this site, please use our postal addresses and write to the:

Department of Health
MDP 62
GPO Box 9848
CANBERRA ACT 2601