CareFlight is a registered Australian aeromedical charity, established in 1986. CareFlight’s mission is to save lives, speed recovery and serve the community by providing the highest standard of rapid response critical care. We use helicopters, aeroplanes and medijets to bring a hospital level of care to the critically ill and injured. We work in partnership with Government and the private sector.

The National Privacy Principles

We apply the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (‘Act’) (as amended) and the 13 Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), effective March 12, 2014, to the collection of your personal information and comply with the National Privacy Principles (‘NPPs’). You can find out more about these principles from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner on 1300 363 992 or on the website www.privacy.gov.au.

CareFlight respects and upholds your rights to privacy protection under the National Privacy Principles in regulating how we collect, use, disclose and hold your personal information. We have a detailed policy and set of procedures to ensure that only authorised staff members have access to your personal information, that it remains confidential and that it is used for appropriate purposes in accordance with this policy.

Why we collect your personal information

CareFlight is very grateful to the thousands of people who provide the support which allows us to continue our lifesaving work. When you give us personal information such as your name and address, we record it on our database and use it to contact you. We may use your personal information to send you information or to let you know about our events and fundraising programs. Each time we send you a communication we will provide you with a simple way to stop receiving similar communications in the future.

CareFlight will not collect sensitive personal information about health, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions or membership, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade association or union membership, sexual preferences or criminal record, unless you have consented to give this information and it is relevant to the work of CareFlight. We will always collect such information in a non-intrusive, lawful and fair manner.

Changing your information or stopping communications

If you want to change any information that you have previously given us, or if you do not want to receive further communication please contact:

  • Mail: The Privacy Officer, CareFlight, Locked Bag 2002, Wentworthville NSW 2145
  • Phone: +61 2 9843 5100
  • Email: privacy@careflight.org

How we collect your personal information

We collect your personal information when you provide it to CareFlight through participation in one of CareFlight’s community fundraising or information events including visits to our base, responding to one of our fundraising mail-outs, donating online, telemarketing, door knocking, CareFlight agents collecting on our behalf through face to face fundraising in a public domain, volunteering, MediSim participation, training or any other activity through which you may have contact with CareFlight. We may also collect your personal information from publicly available sources such as the telephone directory or through trusted third parties such as list vendors.

What personal information do we collect

Individual information held on an individual may include:

  • Full name, including titles and suffix
  • Gender
  • Address
  • Best contact telephone and email address
  • Date of birth
  • Spouse name, including titles and suffix
  • Spouse gender
  • Spouse address
  • Spouse date of birth
  • Next of kin/emergency contact name and telephone number

Business information held on an entity may include:

  • Job title
  • Contact name, including titles and suffix
  • Company name
  • Company address
  • Company contact telephone, email and Website address
  • Email address

To assist with processing your donations, we capture details such as:

  • Credit card details – which are securely encrypted and stored to comply with NPP regulations
  • Cheque account details – to cross check any dishonoured cheques from the bank
  • Direct debit account number for processing of regular donations – these are kept in accordance with NPP regulations

How we keep your personal information secure

If you provide us with your personal information, it is securely stored in our database, which is accessed only by authorised staff at CareFlight. Our computer system is kept secure by our internal network using domain authentication. Access is limited and each user has security level user rights and must provide a username/password to sign into the database. In addition, our external access to email is Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

Disclosing your personal information

CareFlight will not provide your personal information to any other individuals or organisations except on a confidential basis to trusted contractors who provide database management, printing and mailing services to CareFlight. In these cases, we ensure that our contractors are also bound by the National Privacy Principles to keep your personal information confidential. Should your personal information be shared with contractors outside of Australia, we will ensure that the organisations concerned are bound by privacy requirements at least as strict as those in Australia.

CareFlight may at times allow third parties to contact you with information we believe may be of interest to you. These organisations generally allow us to do the same and this way we can reach more people with vital information. However, before allowing third parties to contact you with information we will give you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving such offers. We also do not give these organisations your details. Instead these communications are arranged through an independent party, which is strictly compliant with privacy legislation. However if you do take advantage of any offer from a third party organisation, they may send further offers to you directly. If you do NOT want to receive communications from organisations we trust, call 1800 655 876 from within Australia or +61 2 9843 5100 from outside Australia, or email our Privacy Officer.

CareFlight is very grateful to those people who are willing to share their personal stories of rescue with others through media stories and in our newsletter. We will only use your personal information for publicity purposes or as stories in community newsletters with your written permission.

Visiting our website

CareFlight websites may use cookies to improve your experience, to display content more relevant to you. If you are concerned about the use of these cookies, your browser can be configured to notify you when you receive a cookie, and provide you with the opportunity to accept or reject it. You may refuse all cookies from CareFlight websites however some functions may be unavailable.

When you generally browse our websites CareFlight does not use ‘cookies’ to track your movements on the site, but we may use Google Analytics to capture and transmit information that is sent with each page request during your visits to our websites. You may opt out of this information collection service by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser plug in.

CareFlight websites will only place a ‘cookie’ on your computer for financial transactions, for example when you make an online donation to CareFlight or purchase a product from our online shop. When you make a payment, our websites refer you to a third party to process your payment transaction. These third parties will use a connection with high grade encryption (SSL RSA with RC4 SHA or md5 128 bit keys) and use ‘session cookies’ for transaction integrity and anti-fraud purposes. Transaction information sent to our bank via these providers is also encrypted and is compliant with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) effective from March 12, 2014, and they will not use your details for any activity other than supporting the primary purpose of preventing fraud and processing the payment.

During financial transactions we will record your email address for the purpose of electronically confirming a payment or donation made on our websites. We will not pass your email address on to any other organisation without your consent.

The CareFlight websites also contain links to other sites of interest and social media. CareFlight does not control, nor is responsible for, the content or privacy practices of those organisations or their websites. Please check the Privacy Statements on other websites before you provide them with your personal information.

CareFlight does not provide any definitive assurance regarding the security of your personal information that is transmitted to and from your computer, as the internet is inherently insecure. You also need to take responsibility and take the reasonable steps recommended by your financial services, Internet Service Provider (ISP) and software vendors to ensure your own computer security and privacy. As such CareFlight is not liable in any way in relation to any breach of security or any unintended loss or disclosure of that information.

The Spam Act 2003

The Spam Act prohibits the sending of unsolicited emails and SMS messages for commercial purposes from or within Australia or to people in Australia, and bans the supply and use of software designed to harvest email addresses. While charities do have some exemptions from this Act, CareFlight will abide by the best practice guidelines, which will be developed on responsible electronic messaging practices by the Australian Communications Authority.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

CareFlight may, without notice, amend or modify its Privacy Policy by posting the amended Privacy Policy to CareFlight’s website.

How to access, correct, update or delete your personal information

If you have any complaints, questions or concerns about what information CareFlight holds or about the accuracy of that information, please contact the CareFlight office on (02) 9843 5100 and ask to speak to the Privacy Officer.

If you wish to request the deletion of your personal data, please contact our team at fundraising@careflight.org and we can assist you in the process of removing your data from our systems.

If you would like to access the information that we hold about you, you can write to the Privacy Officer. We will endeavour to give you access to that information within two weeks. In order to maintain the confidentiality of your personal information, we will ask you to come into the CareFlight office and to bring with you specific identification before we give you access. If it is not practical for you to visit our office, we will arrange to check your identification before we mail the information out to you. If the information that we hold about you is incorrect or not up-to-date, we will update it as soon as possible after you have shown us how and why it is incorrect. In the unlikely event that we are unable to provide you with access to your personal information for legal reasons as specified in the Privacy Act, we will provide you with reasons for denying access.