Introduction
This statement sets out Black Dog Institute's policies relating to the collection and use of your personal information. It applies to your conduct on the myCompass web site. These policies are in addition to Black Dog Institute's general Terms of Use governing myCompass and should be read in conjunction with such Terms of Use.
Black Dog Institute recognises that your privacy is very important to you and that we are under a legal obligation to protect the integrity of your personal information. In accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Commonwealth) and the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW), we comply with the National Privacy Principles. This statement sets out the Black Dog Institute’s policy relating to the collection and use of your personal information in myCompass.
Please note that this Privacy Policy applies only to myCompass and not to any other sites that are linked to or mentioned on Black Dog Institute's other websites.
Your personal information is important to us
We recognise that your privacy is very important and that you have a right to control personal information. We know that providing personal information is an act of trust and we take that seriously. The following sections set out how we handle and protect your personal information and safeguard your privacy.
myCompass Membership (Registered myCompass user)
Black Dog Institute has implemented a membership system which offers a more rewarding and personalised myCompass experience (‘Membership’). To become a member and obtain the full benefits of Membership, you register your details with us and log in as a member each time you visit myCompass. (Membership is not necessary to access some of the information.) The benefits of Membership include the ability to track your mood and access learning activities to help you deal with a range of emotional and lifestyle issues.
How we collect information about you
There are five main ways we collect information about you:
1. If you are not or do not log in as a myCompass member
Whenever you visit myCompass, our servers automatically record information about your usage of myCompass, such as the time of the visit, its duration and the pages you visit. This is to help us understand what parts of myCompass our users enjoy the most and to help us ensure that the information on myCompass is most directly relevant to your interests. If you have not identified yourself on myCompass, such as by registering for Membership or logging in as a member, the information we collect about you remains anonymous.
2. If you log in as a myCompass member
Once you have become a myCompass member, we collect personal information about you in order to provide you with the full benefits of Membership. When you first register for Membership, we collect information from you such as your email, mobile, name and date of birth. You will also fill in a screening survey to establish your suitability for myCompass. Additionally, we collect information on your preferences in order to tailor the content to your needs.
If you provide to us personal information, you agree to provide to us current, correct and accurate information as required by us to provide this service to you.
3. If you complete our Profiling Questionnaire
Once you become a myCompass member, you can elect to take a survey called the Profiling Questionnaire in order to personalise the recommended areas to track or learning activities to complete. The information collected in this survey includes your personal subjective assessment of your mental health.
4. If you elect to Track
As a myCompass member you may elect to track aspects of your mental health and lifestyle. We record your subjective ratings of these aspects in order to present this information back to you allowing you to determine whether there are trends or patterns in this data.
5. If you elect to do any learning Activities
As a myCompass member, you may elect to take a number of learning Activities dealing with various aspects of mental health. These learning Activities are highly interactive and collect a number of different pieces of information in order to try and help you deal with your mental health and lifestyle.
How we use and disclose your information
We will use the information you provide to us to:
a) provide myCompass services to you; and
b) for internal purposes, including to fulfil our legal requirements, quality assurance and management purposes.
Black Dog Institute will not disclose your personal information without your consent unless:
a) we believe there is a serious and imminent threat to the life, health or safety of yourself or another person;
b) we need to investigate or report on activity which we believe on reasonable grounds to be unlawful;
c) disclosure is required or authorised by law (for example where a regulatory authority has the power to request the provision of certain records or information);
d) disclosure is reasonably necessary to enable an enforcement body to perform its functions, for example:
(i) the prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of criminal offences; and
(ii) the preparation for, or conduct of, proceedings before any court or tribunal, or implementation of the orders of a court or tribunal.
You acknowledge that Black Dog Institute's right to disclose Personal Information under the Privacy Policy may involve disclosure to entities located outside Australia. Where Black Dog Institute is required or authorised to disclose your Personal Information, you consent to the disclosure of your Personal Information to foreign entities.
We will never share your personal information with a third party or allow a third party to promote its products and services directly to you without your explicit consent.
Black Dog Institute may use information to publish aggregate statistics about usage, membership, traffic patterns and other related site information that does not personally identify members. This is important to ensure that our content and services continue to meet the general needs of our users and members.
Data for research purposes
myCompass collects information on your birth year, postcode, gender, as well as your answers to mental health questions and your entries while tracking or completing any of the activities. This data is referred to as “your input”. This input is stored securely on Black Dog Institute servers and is only accessed by those with appropriate authorisation. Your input is used for the following purposes:
a) To give you personalised feedback
b) To evaluate the usefulness of the program
c) To contribute to e-mental health research outcomes
At no point in time will your data be identifiable when used for research purposes. All of your personal information will remain strictly confidential and all use of data will strictly comply with
a) the institute’s privacy policy, and
b) the myCompass specific privacy policy.
To read the policies in full, please visit:
http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/privacy
https://www.mycompass.org.au/Footer/PrivacyPolicy
Our interaction with you via the internet and social media
To improve your experience on Black Dog Institute websites, apps and online applications, we may use ‘cookies’. Cookies are small text files that may transfer to your computer when you visit one of our digital platforms. The use of cookies is a standard practice for most businesses and organisations as it allows your computer or device to remember your preferences. You can turn off cookies in your browser settings if you do not want them to be active across any digital platform.
Our digital platforms also use Google Analytics. This service collects unidentifiable data from users of digital products. This allows us to generate reports to help us understand website traffic and behaviour.
We use Facebook Custom Audiences to deliver advertising to Website Visitors on Facebook through the use of pixels. You can find out more about Facebook pixels here. These pixels are used to deliver content of similar interest to website visitors via the Facebook platform.
When you look at our website, our Internet Service Provider may make a record of your visit and logs the following information for statistical purposes only - the user's server address, the user's top level domain name (for example .com, .gov, .au, etc), the date and time of the visit to the site, the pages accessed and documents downloaded, the previous site visited, and the type of browser used.
When using any Black Dog Institute website, app or online application, you consent to Google processing your data as set out in their Privacy Policy, and for the purposes described above. You can opt out of your unidentified data being processed by Google by disabling your cookies, disabling JavaScript, or using Google’s opt-out service.
How we store your information
We will take all reasonable steps to keep secure any information we hold about you and to keep this information accurate and up to date. Your information is stored on secure servers that are protected in controlled facilities.
In addition, our employees and the contractors who provide services related to our information systems are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by us. However, we will not be held responsible for events arising from unauthorised access to your personal information.
The security of your personal information is important to us. We use Government Data Centres (GovDC) commissioned by the University of New South Wales for data storage and backups. The data remains controlled by us. UNSW IT follows industry standards to protect personal information and uses secure socket layer (SSL) technology and key based encryption techniques. However, the internet and any method of electronic storage is not 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. We also encourage you to take responsibility for the security of your own computer system.
Your role in protecting personal information
By keeping your personal information secure and being aware of security, you can play an important part in protecting your personal information. You are responsible for maintaining the security and confidentiality of your username and password. Always logoff from myCompass after completing your session, and do not let other people use your myCompass account.
Please notify us immediately if there is any unauthorised use of your account by any other Internet user or any other breach of security.
How you can access your information
If you are a myCompass member, you can access, change and update your Membership profile at any time on myCompass. Subject to any legal restrictions, we are happy to advise you what additional personal information we hold about you, should you request this. If your request is particularly complex or requires detailed searching of our records, there may be a cost to you in order for us to provide this information. If you believe there are errors in our records about you, please let us know and we will be happy to investigate and correct any inaccuracies.
Changes to the Privacy Policy
Our commitment to ensure myCompass is the leading Australian eHealth service means that we are constantly adding new sites and features to myCompass. We will continuously review our Privacy Policy to ensure that it protects your privacy while supporting your user experience on myCompass. Black Dog Institute may from time to time amend the Privacy Policy, and users are advised that continued use of the site following amendment is deemed confirmation of acceptance. We encourage you to keep visiting our Privacy Policy to see if any updates have been made.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns about our Privacy Policy, please send an email to eMH@blackdog.org.au