Who we are
We are Care Opinion Australia, a non-profit organisation. You can find us in Brisbane, Queensland.
Telephone: 07 3354 4525.
Email: info@careopinion.org.au
Our Data Protection Officer is Alicia Reid.
Why we collect information from you
Care Opinion’s mission is to provide an online platform so that people can share honest feedback easily and without fear, stories are directed to wherever they can help make a difference, and everyone can see how and where services are listening and changing in response.
We do this in a way which allows many people to read and learn from your feedback, but at the same time protects your privacy.
The lawful basis for our data processing is your consent. We only collect feedback from you if you agree to share it with us for this purpose. You can withdraw your consent for us to share your feedback at any time.
We do not use the information you share with us to make any decisions about you or create any automated profile or score about you.
How we store your personal data
All data collected and stored by Care Opinion Australia is securely hosted in the Microsoft Azure Australia East data centre, ensuring that your information remains within Australian jurisdiction and is managed in accordance with Australian Privacy Principles.
In order to support and maintain the Care Opinion platform, certain technical staff employed by Care Opinion UK (our parent organisation) may require access to the platform infrastructure. This access is strictly limited to platform maintenance and system updates, and is governed by robust security protocols. These include:
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to restrict access to only what is necessary
- Comprehensive audit logging of access activities.
These measures ensure that any remote access complies with the highest standards of data security and confidentiality.
By submitting your personal data, you consent to its storage in Australia and to limited, secure access by authorised technical staff outside of Australia where necessary for system support and maintenance. Care Opinion Australia takes all reasonably necessary steps to ensure your personal information is handled securely and in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles.
Security
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Website; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
Information we collect from you
When you share your story on Care Opinion we ask for information about your story, and about you.
What we collect and why
| Information we collect | Why we collect it |
Your story | We collect your story so we can publish it on our website. We hope this will help people in many places learn from your experience, whether it was positive or where it could be improved. |
The service provider you used | We collect the name of the service(s) you used so that we can let staff in those services know about your story. Staff may post a response to your story. |
What you felt was good or could be improved, and how you felt | We collect this to help summarise your story, and also to make it easier for people to find your story on Care Opinion. |
Your email address | We collect your email address so we can communicate with you about your story. For example, we will email you to let you know when your story is published, when you receive a response, or when your story leads to a change. |
Your postcode | We collect your postcode so that we can direct your feedback to the health/care organisations which are responsible for making sure there is safe and good quality care in your area. |
Your age group | We collect your age group (adult, young person, child) to help us understand who is using our service. |
Your IP address | We collect your computer’s IP address to help us prevent or detect possible abuse of our web site. |
Optional additional information you can share
After you share your story, you can also give us extra information about yourself if you want to. You don’t have to give us this information. The extra information is:
- Your gender
- The year you were born
- Your ethnic group
- Whether you are limited by a health condition.
This information helps us to understand more about how different groups of people use Care Opinion.
As you use Care Opinion, if you are logged in we collect other information about how you use the site:
Stories you have looked at: we collect this to provide you with your recent reading history.
Stories you have marked as “similar experiences”: we collect this to help us show which experiences are most common.
Responses you post to your story: we collect responses to help people resolve issues and communicate effectively with the services they used.
Who can see the information you share with us?
Because the purpose of Care Opinion is to direct stories to wherever they can help make a difference, after we moderate your story we make it public and share it as widely as we can.
But, to protect your privacy, we don’t share information about who you are.
Information we make public
- Your story
- The health/care services you used
- What you felt was good or could be improved, and how you felt
- Your age group
- Your responses
We share this information with everyone. Sometimes we may share your story with the service providers it is about before we publish it on Care Opinion.
Information we keep private
- Your email address
- Your postcode
- Your IP address
- Stories you have read
- Stories you have marked as similar experiences
We don’t share this information with anyone.
But if we believe that there is an immediate risk of serious harm or loss of life to you, or to someone else, we may share your identifying information with the health/care service caring for you, or with the police as part of our safeguarding practices.
Information we share only as statistics
If you give us extra personal information (decade of birth, gender, ethnicity, long-term illness), this statistical information can be used to run reports. These details are de-identified, aggregated and not linked to any individual stories.
We do provide reports to health/care organisations which include this information as statistics. For example, our reports might say “50% of people using Care Opinion are over 55 years old”. Our reports never include your individual personal information, and we never show your individual personal information with your story.
How do we share the information we make public?
After we publish your story (along with the services it is about), we share it in different ways so that it can be read and used by many people.
Some of the ways we might share your story are:
- We publish it on our website for anyone to read.
- We send emails to staff who have requested to be notified of stories about their service.
- We post a link to your story on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
- We include your story in reports for health, aged and community service organisations.
- We share your story with health, aged and community service organisations and researchers via our data feed (API).
- We share your story with health, aged and community service students training to become professionals.
Because your story is online, like any web page it will be seen by search engines like Google. This means people can search for your story.
In line with our mission we share your story as widely as we can, without sharing your private information, because we want your story to make a difference.
How long we keep your information for
Because people can learn from your story even many years after you shared it, we keep the information you share with us indefinitely.
Your rights in relation to your information
We hold your information only with your consent. You can withdraw your consent to sharing some or all of your information at any time.
Your rights
| You have the right to be informed | This privacy notice provides information about who we are, the information we collect, what we do with it, and who can see it. When we ask you for information we provide a summary privacy notice and a link to this longer privacy notice. |
| You have the right of access | You can see the information you have shared with us by logging into Care Opinion using your email address and password. |
| You have the right to correct your information | When you log into Care Opinion you can correct any personal information you have shared with us. |
| You have the right to a copy of your data | When you log into Care Opinion, you can request a download of all the stories and responses you have shared with us. |
| You have the right to withdraw your data | You can withdraw any story you have shared with us, whether we have published it or not. You need to log into Care Opinion to do this. |
| You have the right to remove all your information | You can ask us to delete all the information you have shared with us. If you do this we will delete your Care Opinion account, all your stories and responses, and any other information we hold. Please note that once your information is deleted, we cannot get it back. If your stories and responses have already been published, they may have been read and saved by many different people. It is not possible to delete copies of your story or responses which have been saved by other people on their own computers. |
| You have the right to complain | If you have any concerns about how we hold and share the information you have given us, please let us know via email to info@careopinion.org.au. |