Calls and emails to, and from, our Advisory Services team – privacy collection notice
SafeWork NSW, an agency of the Department of Customer Service, collects, stores, uses, discloses, and disposes of the personal, health and other information you provide us in accordance with the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998, Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 and the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. SafeWork NSW is committed to protecting your privacy.
Why we collect the information
Throughout calls and in email correspondence, you may provide and we may ask for personal and health information so we can provide our services, respond to your enquiries, and assess and appropriately respond to work health and safety issue(s). We also collect information to manage the quality of our service delivery.
Generally, providing the Advisory Services team with your personal information is voluntary and you can choose how much information you give us but limiting what you tell us may limit SafeWork NSW's services and the guidance we can provide.
The exception is when a person conducting a business or undertaking (a PCBU), such as an employer or site manager, calls 13 10 50 to make a mandatory incident notification about a workplace serious injury or illness, a dangerous incident or a workplace fatality. In those cases, health and safety law requires the PCBU gives certain information to SafeWork NSW.
Information we collect
Telephone calls:
- to our staff via 13 10 50 and 1800 Asbestos (1800 272 378), and
- to you from our staff in the SafeWork Advisory Services team,
are monitored and voice and screen recorded for quality assurance, training and verification purposes. If you’d prefer that your call is not recorded, please let us know when the call is answered. Call voice and screen recordings are automatically deleted after a short period under our Call & Email Recording Policy, unless specific recordings are extracted and kept for longer periods for evidentiary purposes, in response to GIPA requests or otherwise authorised by law.
Our staff may also make manual notes in our systems of information provided during calls.
Emails:
- to our email addresses, including [email protected], other group email accounts and individual email addresses are stored in our email systems and email contents may be copied into SafeWork NSW's other information systems.
The information we collect can include the following:
- Name
- Address
- Email address
- Contact phone number
- Workplace location
- Business name and contact details
- Other worker or management name and role
- Work health and safety issue(s) or enquiries being raised including dates of events
- Health, injury, treatment and treatment provider details
- Reference numbers
- Documents and images you provide us in support of the issues you raise
- For mandatory incident notifications: Details of injured parties, injuries and treatment providers
How we may use and disclose this information
SafeWork NSW will use and disclose the personal and health information provided in calls and emails only for the purposes for which it was provided and collected, including:
- Responding to your enquiries, providing our services or assessing, investigating and responding to your safety concerns and incident notifications (as applicable)
- Purposes directly related to those above
- Managing the quality of our service delivery
- If you consent to another use or disclosure
- In emergencies to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to life or health
- As otherwise required or authorised by law.
We will not use or disclose your personal and health information to anybody else unless you have given consent, or we are authorised or permitted to do so by law. Our privacy statement describes when this may occur.
Storage and disposal
We will store securely and manage your personal and health information in accordance with the provisions under the PPIP Act, HRIP Act and WHS Act. We keep your personal and health information on controlled systems, which are secured against unauthorised access.
The information will be kept for no longer than necessary for the purposes of which the information may lawfully be used. The information is disposed of securely, protected by taking reasonably necessary safeguards against any loss, unauthorised access, use, misuse, modification, or disclosure and against all other misuse of information.
Further information
You have the right to access and correct your personal and health information at any time by contacting us in writing: Privacy Contact Officer, SafeWork NSW, Locked Bag 2906, Lisarow NSW 2252 or at [email protected].