Privacy Policy

Victorian Disability and Aged Care Services (VDAACS, “we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains how we handle your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

Because we are a disability and aged-care provider, we often handle sensitive information — including health and disability information. We treat this information with a higher level of care, and only collect it with your consent and for the purposes described below.

Who this policy applies to

This policy applies to information collected through this website (vdaacs.com.au), including our enquiry and contact forms. Information collected when you become a participant or client is handled under our separate service and participant-agreement documentation, which is provided to you directly.

What information we collect

When you use the contact or enquiry form on this website, we collect:

• Your name
• Your email address
• Your phone number (if you provide it)
• The capacity in which you are enquiring (for example: participant or family member, support coordinator, plan manager, or allied health / hospital)
• The content of your message

If your message includes health or disability information (for example, describing a participant’s support needs), that is sensitive information. By including it in your message, you consent to us collecting and using it to respond to your enquiry. Please only include the details necessary for us to help.

We do not require you to provide more information than we need to respond to you.

Why we collect it and how we use it

We collect and use this information to:

• respond to your enquiry and provide the information or consultation you have asked for;
• assess whether we are able to provide suitable supports;
• contact you about your enquiry; and
• keep records of enquiries for quality, safety and administrative purposes.

We do not use your contact-form information for marketing without your consent, and we do not sell your personal information to anyone.

How your information is stored and secured

Enquiries submitted through this website are delivered to us by email. We use Resend (a third-party email delivery service) to process and deliver these messages to our team inbox. This means the contents of your enquiry pass through Resend’s systems for the purpose of delivering the email to us.

We take reasonable steps to protect your information from misuse, loss, and unauthorised access, including transport encryption (HTTPS), access controls on our systems, and limiting access to staff who need it. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to protect your information using reasonable safeguards.

Referrals and third-party information

If you are a Support Coordinator, LAC, plan manager or health professional referring a participant to us, you may provide personal and health information about another person (the participant). When you submit a referral, you confirm that you have that person’s (or their authorised representative’s) consent to share their details with us.

We collect this information to assess and arrange supports, handle it as sensitive information under the APPs, and use it only for that purpose. If you believe a referral has been made about you without consent, please contact us using the details below and we will address it.

Overseas disclosure

Some of our service providers (including Resend) may store or process information on servers located outside Australia. Where this occurs, we take reasonable steps to ensure your information is handled consistently with the APPs.

Cookies and similar technologies

This website uses only essential cookies and local storage that are necessary for the site to function and to remember your choices.

Specifically, we store your cookie/consent choice and a small flag for the mobile menu in your browser’s local storage so the site works correctly and does not ask you to make the same choice repeatedly. These are not used to track you.

We do not currently run analytics, advertising, or third-party tracking cookies. If we introduce analytics in the future, it will only load after you accept via our cookie notice, and we will update this policy and the notice to describe it.

You can change your choice at any time using the “Cookie preferences” link in the website footer.

Disclosure to third parties

We may disclose your information to:

• Resend, solely to deliver enquiry emails to us (as described above); and
• where required or authorised by law.

How long we keep your information

We keep enquiry records only for as long as necessary for the purposes described above, or as required by law, after which we take reasonable steps to delete or de-identify them.

Accessing or correcting your information

You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct it, by contacting us using the details below. We will respond within a reasonable period. There is generally no charge to make a request.

Making a complaint

If you have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first using the details below so we can try to resolve it. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au or 1300 363 992.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is always available on this page, with the “Last updated” date shown above.

Contact us

Victorian Disability and Aged Care Services Unit 112, 30 Wallace Avenue, Point Cook VIC 3030 Phone: (03) 8379 7320 Email: [email protected] ABN 30 974 841 467