At The Ethics Centre, we are committed to ensuring the privacy of our members, clients and extended community is well protected. This Privacy Policy sets out the way in which we do this. When you access and use our site or services, this indicates that you accept this policy, and in doing so, consent to the collection, use and distribution of information, whether provided to us via our website, through an event or consulting service, or a third party. It also outlines how we manage and provide you access to this information.

Collection of information

We will only collect personal information from you that we reasonably require for our events, activities, products or services, and will do so in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles.

The kinds of information we collect will depend on what type of interaction you have with us, which may include any of the following:

  • Participating in a promotion, competition, promotional activity, survey or market research;
  • Subscribing to our mailing list or interacting with us through our social media pages;
  • Making a donation or becoming a member;
  • Attending one of our events or learning programs;
  • Participating in our consulting services;
  • Participating in interviews and focus groups;
  • Client engagement;
  • Completion of evaluation surveys;
  • Using our Ethi-call helpline service.

When you visit our website, certain information is collected using various technologies such as cookies, internet tags and navigational data. Unless you are accessing our site or services through links sent specifically to you, this information is generally not linked to the identity of our visitors. The type of information we collect may include the date, time and duration of visits, and which pages of our website are most commonly accessed.

What is personal information?

Personal information is any piece of information that relates to a living, identifiable human being.  People’s names, contact details, date of birth, job role, purchase records, individual preferences: anything that you can look at and say “this is about an identifiable person”.

Individuals using our Ethi-call helpline may choose to disclose sensitive information due to the nature of the service. We will not collect sensitive information from you unless you voluntarily provide it. By voluntarily providing your sensitive information, you consent to our collection and use of this information in accordance with this policy. For guidance about sensitive personal information, please see the section on Ethi-call below.

How we store your personal information

Where we store your personal information depends on what type of interaction you have had with us and may include manual or electronic databases.

We take all reasonable steps to protect your information from misuse, loss, interference and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Unfortunately the internet is not secure so any information you send to us via the internet is done so at your own risk. This includes information provided to us through our website, payments and third party sites.

We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is required for the purpose it was collected, or if we are required by law to retain it. When there is no longer a need to retain the information, we will take the appropriate measures to either destroy or de-identify it.

How we use your personal information

The information we collect from you will be used to help us provide products, services, and events to you, which include among other things;

  • Processing donations or memberships via our electronic or mobile ordering system, providing you with email or SMS confirmation of your payment, providing you with our products and processing refunds where applicable;
  • Administering and responding to your enquiry or feedback about our products, services or events;
  • Conducting, and allowing you to participate in, a competition, promotional activity, survey or market research;
  • Promoting and marketing current and future products and services to you, informing you of upcoming events and offers and analysing our products, services and events so as to develop and improve them;
  • Facilitating our internal business operations, including fulfilment of any legal and regulatory requirements;
  • Improving the operation and navigation of our website;

We may use your personal information for purposes not listed above, or for purposes required by law, but we will make this clear to you at the time of collection.

Disclosure of personal information

Third Party

When we are unable to administer a service internally, such as ticket sales, event promotion or call and webinar services, we may contract third party service providers to provide services such as:

  • Conducting surveys, soliciting donations and managing databases;
  • Registering participants for deliveries of services such as call conferencing.

Third party providers are chosen for their capacity to deliver quality services and we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that the information being transferred will not be held, used, or disclosed in a manner not in line with the Australian Privacy Principles. Note however, that we will not disclose your personal information to anyone else for marketing purposes.

Legal

It is possible that we will need to disclose information about you when required by law, subpoena, or other legal process or if we have a good faith belief that disclosure is reasonably necessary. We recognise our obligation to protect your privacy and as such we will judge each legal request on its own merit.

If appropriate, we will always attempt to notify you in these instances, unless the law or a court order prohibits us from doing so.

Ethi-call

Collection

To use the Ethi-call helpline we require your name, email address and telephone number. This information is entered through the Simplybook platform and is used to authenticate you, to send you an SMS confirmation and a reminder of your booking, and to authorise access to our Ethi-call services. This information is accessible to Counsellors and Ethi-call Administrators.

There is a provision for callers to not leave any personally identifying information when booking an Ethi-call session. This involves phoning The Ethics Centre directly to book a session and booking the session under a pseudonym. At the time of the booking, callers will be provided with the dial in number for the Ethi-call session and unique session ID. This allows the caller to access the session at the designated time whilst remaining anonymous.

Recording and use of information

Information collected during an Ethi-call session is done so for the purpose of communicating session details, recalling details for use throughout the duration of the session and for post-session training. However, if information is retained beyond the duration of the session, it will be de-identified and recorded in one of the following ways:

  • The Counsellor may choose to take down hand-written notes during the session. This information will be used by the Counsellor to help guide the caller through their ethical dilemma. These notes may then be used for training purposes during a debriefing session with other Counsellors. Such sessions are private and can only be attended by other Ethi-call Counsellors. If used for this purpose, the notes will be securely destroyed following the debriefing session unless consent is given by the caller for it to be used as a future case study;
  • Specific Ethi-call sessions are recorded for training purposes. Caller consent will be sought before recording commences;
  • Details of the Ethi-call session, such as demographic information and dilemma classification information are entered into Podio, a third party database used to record information. Information entered into this database is de-identified and accessible only to Counsellors and Ethi-call Staff. All information entered into this database is subject to the Privacy Policy of the Podio application;
  • If a Counsellor suspects that an individual is at risk of imminent danger they may be required by law or moral obligation to notify the relevant authorities. In this instance, identifying information such as name and telephone number may be pulled from the Simplybook platform. Where possible we will take all reasonable steps to gain the permission of the caller prior to taking this action. However, we may be forced to act without the permission of the caller in order to maintain our duty of care.
  • Information collected through the Ethi-call evaluation survey will be used for training, data analysis and marketing of Ethi-call. This information may include, for example, your age range, gender, occupation as well as opinions and feedback specific to the user experience.

Access to personal information

You can ask us to access your personal information or to change it. To do so, please contact the Privacy Officer via the contact details below. We may ask you to provide proof of identity.

Contact us

If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy or the use of your information please contact the Privacy Officer at:
Postal address: Level 2, Legion House, 161 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, NSW 2000
Email address: communications@ethics.org.au

Legal Information

The Ethics Centre makes no warranty or guarantee express or implied in respect to any of the contents, information, materials, items, or products appearing or referred to in this website. All or any liability in respect to any of the information or items appearing or referred to on this web site is disclaimed to the fullest extent permissible by law.

Please note that The Ethics Centre does not necessarily endorse or recommend any external web sites, individuals or organisations which are linked to or mentioned within this site.

Note that further legal disclaimers and other information regarding use of this site may appear in some of the interactive areas of the website.