Privacy

Your Privacy Is Important To Us

The Talking Room (also referred to as “Talking Room”, “we” or “our”) is the sole owner of the information collected on the talkingroom.com.au website (this “Site”). The Talking Room understands your concerns with protecting your personal information, and we value and appreciate your trust.

The psychological service provided by The Talking Room is subject to the legal requirements of the National Privacy Principles from the Privacy Act (1988).

Information Collection And Use

General. In the normal course of operating this Site and providing services to you, we may store or collect nonpublic personal information such as (names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.) or other information that we receive directly from you through this Site, registrations, questionnaires, surveys and other forms. We may also receive information about you from our business associates or others that you have authorised to give us information. We may use your information to provide the services requested by you. Additionally, we may use your information to enhance this Site.

Email Communications. We will correspond with you via email in response to your inquiries, to provide the services you request, and to manage your account. By using this site, you consent to us contacting you via email.

Services. When you purchase services from this Site, you must provide certain personally identifiable information, such as name, email, address and phone number on our member registration, newsletter subscription and appointment booking forms. The information you provide will be used to identify you in your activities on our site and for services we may provide to you at your request. If we need to communicate with you or provide services to you, we may use this information to contact you. We may send emails to you as necessary to keep you informed on the status of your activities with us.

Cookies. Whenever you interact on this Site, we receive and store certain information through Internet "cookies.” A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user's computer for record-keeping purposes. The information collected will be used to personalise content and services on this Site, which will allow you to take advantage of some of our best features. If you linked to this Site from another website, we may collect the address of that website. We do NOT use cookies to examine your surfing behavior on the Internet or any website other than this Site.

Information Sharing And Disclosure

We employ security procedures to help protect personal information stored in our systems, including limiting access to personal information to employees who we believe reasonably need to come into contact with that information and using processes such as password hashing, login auditing, and idle session termination. Despite our efforts, there is still no way for us to guarantee the security of your personal information.

Employees. Access to member information is limited to employees who have a need to know it to provide customer service, maintain our information systems or provide other services. Our employees are subject to a confidentiality agreement.

Third Parties. We may share Personally Identifiable Information when required to provide services to you. For example, we may send your name and billing information to our payment processing service, and we may share Personally Identifiable Information in order to advise your referring doctor, other medical or allied health professionals, your legal representatives or other parties with your explicit consent.

Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable). Aggregated demographic information about our members may be shared with our vendors. This information does not identify individual members. For example, we may disclose the gender distribution of our membership.

We may also publish analyses of the data collected on this Site. For example, we may display a graph showing the number of users from given regions. These analyses will not contain any personally identifiable information.

The Talking Room does not sell your name, address, or purchase information to any third parties.

Legal Matters. We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required or permitted by law or when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect or enforce our rights. Such disclosures may include disclosures necessary: (i) to comply with a court order, legal process, or other judicial or investigative proceeding that produces a request for information from The Talking Room; or (ii) to fulfill or respond to a request from you or that of your authorised representative; and as otherwise described in this Privacy Notice.

Interactive Areas

If you post or comment on our articles or blogs, use the discussion forum or other forums (“Interactive Areas”) on this Site, any personally identifiable information you submit in the forums can be read, collected, or used by other user of the Interactive Areas. Such information could be used to send you unsolicited messages or for other unauthorised purposes. The Talking Room is not responsible for any use by third parties of personally identifiable information disclosed by you or third parties in the Interactive Areas. We assume no responsibility for any liability whatsoever related to such disclosures.

Links To Other Sites

This Site contains links to other web sites that are not owned or controlled by The Talking Room. The Talking Room is not responsible for the privacy practices of external linked sites. This Privacy Policy applies only to information collected on this Site by The Talking Room. You must understand when you are leaving this Site and should read the privacy statements of each and every web site that you may visit.

Security

The security of your personal information is important to us. The Talking Room uses NetGear, ESET, AVG, Apache SpamAssassin and other security technology to protect your personal data.

Assignments

Changes to this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy may be modified from time to time by posting the updated policy containing any modifications to this Site.

Transfers and Assignments. The Talking Room reserves the right to transfer your personally identifiable information in connection with a business transition such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all its assets. Your personally identifiable information will continue to be held in confidence.

Disputes. Any disputes concerning this Privacy Policy will be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of the state of Victoria, without regard to the principle of conflicts of laws. You agree that any legal action or proceeding between The Talking Room and you for any purpose concerning this Privacy Policy or The Talking Room, obligations hereunder shall be brought exclusively in a federal or state court of competent sitting in the state of Victoria.

Requests For Access To Client Information

At any stage you as a client are entitled to access to the information about you kept on file, unless the relevant legislation provides otherwise. Your psychologist may discuss with you appropriate forms of access. All requests by clients for access to information held about them should be lodged with your psychologist. These requests will be responded to within 10 working days and an appointment will be made if necessary for clarification purposes.

Concerns

If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should contact The Talking Room via email at web [AT] talkingroom [DOT] com [DOT] au. This e-mail address has been intentionally obfuscated to protect it from spam bots. Please replace the words in brackets in the preceding email address with the appropriate symbols on your keyboard.

Upon request you can obtain a copy of the National Privacy Principles/Health Privacy Principles, which describe your rights and how your information should be handled. Ultimately, if you wish to lodge a formal complaint about the use of, or access to, your personal information, you may do so with the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner on 1300 363 992, or GPO Box 5218, Sydney, NSW 1042.