Thrive lactation consultants privacy policy

PRIVACY POLICY

Your Privacy is extremely important. Thrive Lactation Consultants is committed to respecting your privacy and upholding the security of your personal information, so you can feel confident when interacting with our services. 

Thrive Lactation Consultants is committed to providing you with the best possible customer service experience while protecting your personal and health data. Thrive Lactation Consultants is bound by the Privacy Act 1988, which sets out a number of principles concerning the privacy of individuals. This Privacy Policy relates to both use of this website and the clinical and practice management aspects of Thrive Lactation Consultants.

Collection of your personal information

We collect personal information you provide to us directly, for example, in person during a lactation consultation, over the phone, by email, or through our website. 

If you choose to make a booking with Thrive Lactation Consultants, or pay for services, via our website, we use third parties to collect personally identifiable personal, financial and health data in accordance with Australian Law (Privacy Act 1988,[1]  and collection of personal and health data in South Australia). On occasion these third party providers use cloud storage of your personal, financial and health data which may be stored in Australia or offshore.

Thrive Lactation Consultants will protect the privacy of your personal health information as required by the Code of Professional Conduct of the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners, the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and additional privacy laws pertaining to health information relevant to my State or territory. 

Use of personal information

We use personal information and health information you provide us to make clinical assessments and develop a management and lactation plan for you and your child. Where necessary, such as in correspondence with your GP or other health professional, your health information may also be used for ongoing management and care (Purpose). 

Other than for the Purpose for which you have provided us with your personal information and health information; we may also use it for other related purposes or as permitted or required by law. Such relating purposes include: 

● issuing receipts

● responding to your comments or questions

● providing you with marketing material such as our newsletter (if you opt-in to receive such information)

● child protection issues

Disclosure of personal information

We may share any personal information you have provided us during our evaluation and/or management of you and/or your child to your other health care providers, as deemed reasonably necessary for your ongoing care and as outlined in your signed consent form.

Any personal information you provide us may also be disclosed, if appropriate, to third parties who provide services on our behalf, such as but not limited to handling customer support enquiries, outsourcing administrative tasks and providing booking and patient management platforms. Those companies will be permitted to obtain only the personal information they need to deliver the service they have been hired to perform on our behalf. 

Our suppliers are required by us to comply with the Australian Privacy Principles. We have confidentiality agreements in place with many of our service providers and external agencies who handle personal information that we provide to them. Thrive Lactation Consultants will only disclose your personal information for the purposes for which it was initially collected, other than directly-related purposes or purposes to which you have otherwise consented. 

Other than as stated above, Thrive Lactation Consultants will not share your personal information. We will never share your personal, health or financial information with any third parties without your consent, or unless required by law. 

Thrive Lactation Consultants is a mandated notifier and is thus required by law to notify the Department of Child Protection if they suspect on reasonable grounds that a child or young person is, or may be at risk, of harm. Further information can be found here.

Data Security 

We are committed to protecting your data. We take commercially-reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is protected from misuse, loss, interference and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. For example, whenever we ask for your financial details online, we use security-encrypted response forms and your information is held in secure servers.

However, data protection and security measures are never completely secure and, despite the measures we have put in place, we cannot guarantee the security of your information. You must take care to protect your personal information (for example, by protecting any usernames and passwords) and you should notify us as soon as possible of any security breaches. If you do not wish to pay your deposit online, please contact us to arrange for an alternative payment method.

Additional Information for website or email use

Accessing the website

There are many aspects of the website which can be viewed without providing personal information, however, for access to certain features you are required to submit personally identifiable information. This may include but not limited to a unique username and password, or provide sensitive information in the recovery of your lost password.

Cookies

When you visit our website, we will collect and store your computer’s assigned IP address, the date and time of your visit, the information accessed and the referring page. We will also collect other non-identifying data for statistical purposes. This information is not linked to your personal information unless required by law.

Like many websites, our website may use ‘cookies’ from time to time. Cookies are small text files that the website transfers to your computer through your web browser to enable the website’s systems to recognise your computer. Cookies may also be used to record non-personal information such as the date, time or duration of your visit, or the pages accessed, for website administration, statistical and maintenance purposes. Any such information will be aggregated and not linked to particular individuals unless required by law. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies by modifying the settings in your browser. Please note that some parts of the website may not function fully for users that disallow cookies.

Third party links

Our website may contain hypertext links to other third-party websites. Thrive Lactation Consultants is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites, which are governed by the privacy policy of third parties. Thrive Lactation Consultants is not in a position to verify the accuracy of the information or any claims made by third parties.

Accuracy, access and correction

Thrive Lactation Consultants takes reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information that we collect and hold is accurate, complete and up-to-date. However, we rely on you to advise us of any changes to your personal information to help us maintain accurate, complete and up-to-date information.

We will, on request, provide you with access to the personal information we hold about you unless otherwise required or permitted by law. You may be required to put your request in writing for security reasons, and we reserve the right to charge a fee for searching for, and providing access to, your information on a per request basis. We will notify you of the basis for any denial of access to your personal information. We will respond to your request within a reasonable period after the request is made.

To request access to your personal information or, if you wish to update or correct your personal information, please contact us via the contact details provided above.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Thrive Lactation Consultants may revise this Privacy Policy or any part of it from time to time. Please review this Privacy Policy for changes. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by email or by putting a notice on our home page thrivelactation.com.au

Your continued use of our website, or provision of further personal information to us once you have been notified of the revised Privacy Policy constitutes your deemed acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy. 

Contacting us

Thrive Lactation Consultants welcomes your comments regarding this Privacy Policy. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy and would like further information, please  contact us with attention to the Privacy Officer.