Your privacy

Users of the Commission site are entitled to expect that any information as a result of that use will be treated in the terms of the NSW Government's privacy responsibilities and obligations. These practices are regulated by the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 and the Commission is defined as an investigative agency by that Act. This means that the Commission is exempted from some provisions of the Act relating to the collection, use and disclosure of private health information when performing its complaint-handling functions. If a complaint raises serious issues of public health or safety, the Commission may require the production of private health records and information without the consent of the patient concerned.

Section 99B of the Health Care Complaints Act 1993 provides that the Commission may disclose information to courts, police, authorities regulating health practitioners and others where the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in protecting the privacy of any person to whom the information relates.

The Commission does not have any responsibility for the privacy policies or practices of third party websites linked to the Commission site.

Steps taken to protect your privacy

The Commission has a Privacy Management Plan, which describes the steps taken to protect your privacy to ensure that all Commission activities are in accordance to the to the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998.

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