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Privacy policy

Kaupapa here tūmataiti

This privacy policy describes how Medical Sexual Assault Clinicians Aotearoa (MEDSAC) deals with your personal information, and how we protect your privacy.

Your privacy

Our commitment to your privacy

We respect your right to privacy and your right to view and update the personal information we hold about you. We are committed to protecting your privacy when you visit our site or contact us in any way.

We will only deal with your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1993 and this privacy policy.

Your personal information

Collecting your personal information

If you access any of our services (including community membership, accreditation, registering for courses or just signing up for our newsletters), you will need to provide us with some or all of the following personal information:

  • your name

  • your email address

  • your residential or postal address

  • the service centre you belong to

  • your qualifications, and

  • your credit card details.

Collectively, this is known as your "personal information".

We do not handle or store full credit card details. These are captured directly by a Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliant payment provider who will only deal with your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act and this privacy policy.

Using your personal information

We collect and use your personal information to:

  • provide you with the services you sign up for

  • administer your community membership efficiently

  • conduct forums and research surveys where you choose to, or are invited to participate

  • tell you about our new services.

Changing your personal information

You have the right to view and change any personal information we hold about you at any time.

MEDSAC members can do this online by entering your email address and password and updating your profile.

Alternatively, you can call us on +64 9 376 1422.

Feedback, forums and data collection

Clinical advice

MEDSAC community members can request clinical advice. All clinical advice communications are treated as confidential to the participants, which include the person seeking advice and the respondent advisors. Where MEDSAC chooses to inform others by publishing the query and the advice given, MEDSAC will not disclose any personal information that would identify any of the participants.

Feedback and forums

All feedback received is treated as confidential information, which may be held with your personal information where it is considered helpful to providing an effective service. You may ask us if we have retained any such information and request that it be deleted.

Comments within a MEDSAC forum are confidential to participants in the forum and should not be published by forum members without your permission.

Sometimes, we might want to publish your feedback and/or forum comments. If so, we will endeavour to get your permission before copying or quoting your message.

Client data

As part of our contribution to improving sexual assault care within New Zealand, MEDSAC collects de-identified client data which is stored in a secure database managed by the New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science (PHF Science).

This data informs planning and resource allocation. None of the data identifies individual patients and is held in accordance with New Zealand privacy laws.

Disclosing your personal information

We will not sell or rent your personal information to any third party. But we may share your contact information with trusted third parties that work on our behalf to distribute our email or print communications.

These companies will only use your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act (or equivalent overseas legislation) and this privacy policy and will never share or on-sell any information that they hold on behalf of MEDSAC.

We do not sell survey results to any third parties.

Cookies

MEDSAC may use cookies and web beacons to help us understand how visitors engage with our website. These technologies allow us to:

  • improve our website (for example, identify and promote popular reports), and

  • provide you with more targeted information where appropriate.

If your browser is set to notify you when you receive a cookie, you will be prompted to accept the cookie. Please select "Yes".

You can also ask your browser to delete or block third party cookies: simply search online for "cookies" + the name of your internet browser (for example, "Google Chrome") for step-by-step instructions.

You should not use a "remember my login" feature on a browser unless you are the only person who has access to the browser. Never enable this feature on a public access computer as this could allow other people to access your personal information.

Contacting you

We may contact you to:

  • clarify details about your community membership or digital access

  • respond to any enquiries you make

  • provide any information necessary for the operation and security of our site.

  • If you are a community member we may also contact you to advise of changes to our terms and conditions, services or new products or promotions.

Email communications

All new MEDSAC associates and affiliates will be signed up to automatically receive email marketing communications. You can choose to remove yourself from email marketing communications by following the "unsubscribe" prompt at the bottom of each email or by updating your preferences in your MEDSAC profile.

Links to other websites

Our websites provide links to other websites when we consider you may be interested in the contents of those sites. We do not endorse any third party sites or their content and we have no control over the conduct of the companies or organisations operating those sites.

Before you disclose any personal information to another site, we advise you to check its terms and conditions, including its privacy and security policies.

Changes to our privacy policy

If we make changes to our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.

Queries and concerns

MEDSAC is committed to dealing quickly and appropriately with any privacy complaints. If you are concerned this privacy policy may have been breached or your privacy has been compromised, please contact us immediately by calling us on +64 9 376 1422.

If you are not satisfied with our response to any privacy-related concern you may have, you can contact the Privacy Commissioner:

  • by mail, at Office of the Privacy Commissioner, PO Box 10-094, Wellington, New Zealand

  • by phone, on +64 4 474 7590 (Wellington) or +64 9 302 8680 (Auckland)

  • through their website.

Office of the Privacy Commissioner

Addendum

Suggested notice to display in clinics and consulting rooms to cover off the collection of client/patient data for the MEDSAC SAATSdata project:

Patient data

As part of our contribution to improving sexual assault care within New Zealand, we subscribe to the SAATSdata project operated by MEDSAC, which is designed to inform local and national planning and resource allocation for the provision of medical sexual assault services throughout New Zealand.

SAATSdata collects anonymised client information that is stored in a secure database managed by the New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science (PHF Science). None of the data identifies individual patients and is held in accordance with New Zealand privacy laws.