Personal information means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.

The types of personal information we collect and hold may include your name, address and contact details, date of birth, credit/debit card or account information, health information and other information about your connection with the causes we support or the services we provide.

We collect personal information from people who are connected to our operations and activities including employees, supporters, donors, researchers, lottery participants, recipients of health services, event and campaign participants, medical and health professionals, health authorities, suppliers, community organisations, volunteers and service providers.

Where possible, we will collect your personal information directly from you. This may be in person, over the phone, by email or through our websites and other online platforms.

We also obtain personal information from third parties such as contractors (including fundraising and lottery service providers), medical and health professionals, health authorities and community workers. If we collect personal information about you from a third party we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are aware of the circumstances surrounding the collection.

We may collect and hold your personal information for a number of purposes, including:

• Fundraising – to manage our fundraising activities and home lottery, process donations, purchases and bequests and provide tax receipts.
• Marketing – to communicate with you about donations, lotteries, products, services, campaigns, prizes, causes, events and the impact of our work.
• Health services and programs – to provide you with information and health services and programs, and to evaluate and report on these services and programs.
• Research – to process grant applications and fund medical, health research , and provide you with information about research initiatives you may be interested in.
• Health promotion – to provide you with information about health risk factors and to seek your support for campaigns and events.
• Volunteering and other support – to enable you to assist us with volunteering, fundraising, community engagement, advocacy and activities or events held or supported by us.
• General purposes – to communicate with you in relation to our operations, activities and objectives, to evaluate and improve our programs and services and to comply with relevant laws.

When administering our services we may collect your health information and other sensitive information. For example, we may collect medical history information and medical referrals from you if you are being provided with health services or participating in a health or wellbeing program.

We will only collect sensitive information when you have consented or when we are required or authorised by law to collect such information.

If you do not provide some or all of the personal information requested, we may not be able to provide you with the information or services you require.

We collect personal information by tracking your use of our websites (in which case we may collect information about your IP address, location or activity).  This information helps us to keep connected with you through understanding use of our websites.  The information we may collect includes information to enable us to personalise your experience on our websites and to enable us to statistically monitor how you are using our website.

We may also use this information to:

• Conduct marketing and promotional activities;
• Provide information to your browser that we think may be of interest to you; and
• Determine the popularity of certain content.

A cookie does not identify individuals personally, but it does identify devices. You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, and this will provide you with an opportunity to either accept or reject it in each instance.

Where we use your personal information to send you marketing or fundraising information by post, email or mobile, we will provide you with an opportunity to opt-out of receiving such information or to change your communication preferences. By electing not to opt-out, we will assume you are consenting to receive similar information and communications in the future.

If you do not wish to receive direct marketing communications from us you can also contact us at:

The Hospital Research Foundation Group
62 Woodville Road, Woodville, Adelaide SA 5011
Telephone:  08 8244 1100
Email:  [email protected]

We may need to disclose your personal information to others in order to carry out our functions and activities. This may include:

• External advisers and service providers – health care professionals, other professionals, government agencies, health authorities, financial institutions and other community service providers.
• Research – universities, research organisations and reviewers of grant proposals.
• Contractors, volunteers and service providers who perform services on our behalf, such as mailing houses, printers, information technology services providers (including cloud computing service providers), consultants and advisers, marketing and fundraising organisations.

Your personal information may also be shared with related entities in THRF Group.  We do not sell or disclose your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes.

We will only share your personal information with your consent or where permitted or required under the Privacy Act 1988.

We use data hosting facilities and third-party service providers to assist us with providing our products and services. As a result, your personal information may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside Australia including the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and Canada.

Personal information may also be processed by other third parties operating outside Australia who are engaged by us. We take such steps as are necessary in the circumstances to ensure that any overseas third-party service providers we engage will comply with the Australian Privacy Principles, including through contractual arrangements.

We take all reasonable steps to protect the personal information we hold from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Your personal information may be stored on a password protected electronic database, which may be our database, a database maintained by a cloud hosting service provider or other third-party database storage or server provider.  Personal information held in databases is accessible only by those persons who need to have access to the information, and is protected by firewalls, the use of encryption and digital certificates.

Hard copy information is generally stored in our offices, which are monitored and/or secured to prevent entry by unauthorised people. Any personal information that is no longer needed for any purpose will be destroyed or de-identified.

Where personal information is stored with a third party, we have arrangements which require the third party to maintain the security of the information.

We do not store your debit or credit card information on our systems.  We use accredited payment gateway providers for debit and credit card transactions and may store a secure token provided for the payment gateway.  Your transaction information is encrypted on our servers and access to this information is restricted to authorised employees only.

You have the right to access your personal information, subject to some exceptions allowed by law.  If you would like to access your personal information please contact our Privacy Officer on the contact details below.  For security reasons you will be asked to put your request in writing.

We reserve the right to charge you for our reasonable costs associated with providing the information requested.  If we refuse to grant you access to your personal information we will provide you with reasons for that decision.

You may ask us to update or correct the personal information we hold about you at any time. We also have obligations to take reasonable steps to correct personal information we hold when we are satisfied that it is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading for the purpose for which it is held.

If you wish to update your personal information please contact us on the contact details below.

If you have any queries or would like to make a complaint relating to our Privacy Policy or how we collect and handle your personal information, please contact us at:

The Privacy Officer
The Hospital Research Foundation Group
62 Woodville Road, Woodville, Adelaide SA 5011
Telephone:  08 8244 1100
Email:  [email protected]

Any complaints to us relating to privacy should be made in writing.  We will endeavour to respond to complaints and queries as soon as practicable.

If you feel that your complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction you are entitled to make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at https://www.oaic.gov.au/about-us/contact-us or by phone on 1300 363 992.