Allied Health Assistants’ National Association Limited (“AHANA”) is a company limited by guarantee and the national peak body for Allied Health Assistants (“AHAs”). AHANA recognises your right to privacy and is committed to protecting your Personal Information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act”).
From time to time, we will update this policy, as we (e.g.) change the services you can obtain through AHANA or adopt new data practices.
The following definitions are paraphrased from the Privacy Act, for readability. You can view the complete definitions by visiting legislation.gov.au and searching for Privacy Act.
AHANA may collect Personal Information where this is required for our work as the peak body and advocacy group for AHAs. For example, to enable us to: create and manage memberships; communicate with members and stakeholders; report on membership status; collate data on the profession; and to perform other activities related to the AHANA’s functions.
We will only collect Personal Information by lawful and fair means and will collect Personal Information primarily directly from you (for example, through our interaction with you or your use of our website). Sometimes it will be an AHANA contractor who collects your Personal Information from you, on behalf of AHANA. For example, AHANA outsources its secretariat and membership services to HealthWork Solutions Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of HealthWork International Pty Ltd. AHANA contractors comply with the Privacy Act.
The type of Personal Information collected will depend on your interaction with AHANA. For example:
If you do not provide AHANA with the minimum amount of Personal Information required for the circumstance, we may not be able to provide you the service you would like us to or resolve your enquiry.
We also collect and aggregate information from our members and stakeholders for the purposes of understanding our membership base and the AHA industry. For example, through a list of non-mandatory questions built into applications for membership, and renewal notices. Any such surveys or other forms of data collection will, where collection involves Personal Information, include a privacy notice for compliance with the Privacy Act. This data is a crucial tool for AHANA in its role advocating for AHAs with Australian government (Commonwealth, State/Territory or Local), funding bodies and stakeholders. This data may be shared with these types of stakeholders in a de-identified fashion (i.e. no names, addresses, workplaces, etc.) but it may not be able to complete de-identify the information in some, limited circumstances. For example, if there is only one AHA working in a particular area, a dataset showing that there is an AHANA member working in that area shows that that particular AHA is an AHANA member.
If we receive unsolicited Personal Information, or information we would not ordinarily be permitted to collect, we will ordinarily destroy or de-identify that information.
AHANA will keep your Personal Information while ever we are legally obliged to keep it, or until the need for us to hold that Personal Information has passed, at which point it will be destroyed, deleted or de-identified.
Information relating to memberships and the industry over time, and decisions by AHANA on memberships and other matters, is retained for record-keeping purposes. To fulfil AHANA’s role as the AHA peak body, it requires this information to fulfil key tasks such as advocating on behalf of the profession, managing the Register of Allied Health Assistants, and accepting and dealing with complaints that relate to the profession.
AHANA’s use of your Personal Information will depend on our interaction with you. Our primary purpose for collecting a member’s Personal Information is to administer the membership and provide the member with its benefits. For other individuals, Personal Information may be collected to respond to enquiries, communicate and work or otherwise transact with you, allow you to participate in our events and programs or to comply with other legal obligations.
We will generally only use your Personal Information for the purpose it was collected (Primary Purpose). However, we may use it for another, Secondary Purpose (Secondary Purpose) provided it relates to the Primary Purpose and you would reasonably expect us to use your Personal Information for that Secondary Purpose. We will only do this in connection with Sensitive Information if the Secondary Purpose is directly related to the Primary Purpose for collection, or with your consent.
We may also need to disclose Personal Information to some of our contractors to enable them to provide AHANA services. E.g. our membership services and secretariat provider (HealthWork Solutions Pty Limited) and the provider of our association management platform (Asset Media Pty Ltd trading as membes). All AHANA contractors comply with the Privacy Act but your Personal Information would only be shared with a contractor to the extent reasonably necessary to enable the contractor to perform its functions, with no authorisation for any other use or function.
AHANA will not use or disclose your Personal Information without your consent other than as outlined in this Privacy Policy or if one of the exceptions from the Privacy Act applies. E.g. if we are authorised or required by law to make the disclosure.
We will only use your Personal Information for direct marketing purposes if we are permitted to do so under the Privacy Act, i.e. where the marketing relates to AHANA’s core services (such as memberships), or if we provide you with an opt-out. Members cannot opt out of marketing about AHANA as it is core to our relationship with you as AHANA members (i.e. needed for maintaining memberships and fulfilling AHANA’s role as peak body by educating and informing about the profession).
AHANA does not disclose Personal Information to any individual or organisation outside Australia. If we transfer Personal Information to an overseas person or organisation, we will comply with the requirements of the Privacy Act that relate to overseas disclosures.
We do not identify any person by a government created identifier, although AHANA members, former members and anyone else who has a user profile in our membership system will have an AHANA user profile number.
AHANA takes all reasonable steps to keep your Personal Information secure, safe and protected from misuse, interference, loss or unauthorised access. Your information is stored on secure servers (electronic records).
Most Personal Information relating to administration of memberships is held on the Asset Media Pty Ltd-owned association management platform “membes” and is subject to the security and other protocols established by Asset Media Pty Ltd in connection with that platform.
The AHANA website utilises cookies. Cookies are very small files which a website uses to identify you when you come back to the site and to store details about your use of the site. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies. You can choose to reject cookies by changing your browser settings; this may prevent you from taking full advantage of our website.
Our website may, from time to time, use cookies to analyse website traffic and help us provide a better website visitor experience. In addition, cookies may be used to identify and provide advertisements to website visitors through third party services, such as Google AdWords and Facebook. These ads may appear on this website or other websites you visit. We do not share any Personal Information with third party providers to facilitate this marketing. You can opt out of these types of arrangement by visiting the provider’s webpage and turning off the "Ads based on your interest" setting.
By using our website, you accept the use and installation of these cookies to provide you with these services.
You have the right to access the Personal Information AHANA holds about you. To do so, please email us at enquiries@ahana.com.au.
We reserve the right to refuse you access to your Personal Information in the limited circumstances allowed by the Privacy Act. For example, we may refuse access if your request would pose a serious threat to another person’s health, would unreasonably impact on the privacy of other people, or is frivolous or vexatious.
AHANA will take reasonable steps to ensure your Personal Information held by us is accurate, up-to-date and complete. If you wish to update or correct your Personal Information, please email membership@ahana.com.au.
If you have a question or complaint about AHANA’s privacy practices, please contact us at admin@ahana.com.au.
We take all aspects of privacy seriously and welcome your feedback.
We will acknowledge your email, and investigate complaints (etc.), promptly.
If you are not satisfied with our response or the outcome of an investigation of a privacy complaint, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au.
For more information about privacy issues in Australia and protecting your privacy, visit the website of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au.