Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 2nd April 2026.

The Hospital Research Foundation (THRF) Group respects your privacy and takes seriously the trust you place with us when sharing your personal details. THRF Group includes a number of charities.  This policy applies to The Hospital Research Foundation Incorporated and the following charities within the Group:

• Australian Breast Cancer Research
• Australian Heart Research
• Australian Prostate Cancer
• The Hospital Research Foundation Group – Kidney, Transplant and Diabetes
• The Hospital Research Foundation Group – WA
• The Hospital Research Foundation Group – Military and Emergency Services Health Australia
• The Hospital Research Foundation Group – Creative Health
• The Hospital Research Foundation Group – Palliative Care
• The Hospital Research Foundation Group – Parkinson’s SA and ACT
• The Hospital Research Foundation Group – Stroke
• The Hospital Research Foundation Group – Arthritis

This Privacy Policy sets out how THRF Group manages your personal information and complies with its obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)  and the Australian Privacy Principles. You should read this Policy before providing us with any personal information or using our websites.

We may revise this Policy from time to time. The revised Privacy Policy will take effect when it is posted on our websites.

 

What is personal information?

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 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/fundraisers, researchers/recipients of grant and research funding, lottery participants, recipients of health services, research participants, event and campaign participants, medical and health professionals, health authorities, suppliers, community organisations, volunteers and service providers.

 

How we collect your personal information

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, prospect research providers, 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.

 

Why we collect your personal information and how we use it

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

• Fundraising – to manage our fundraising activities, process donations, purchases and bequests, provide tax receipts and conduct donor profiling, and prospect research to help support our mission. This may include using personal information we already hold, together with information that is publicly available, to better understand our supporters and to help ensure our fundraising and engagement activities are appropriate, proportionate and aligned with our charitable purpose.
• Home lottery – to enter you in the draw, contact prize winners, publicise the names of prize winners, notify you about future lotteries and inform you about other services offered and activities undertaken by us that may be of interest to you.
• Marketing – to provide you with information that we believe may be of interest to you about us and our business partners, to communicate with you about donations, lotteries, products, services, campaigns, grants, events, surveys 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 conduct research or process grant applications and fund, evaluate and report on supported projects, and provide you with information about research initiatives you may be interested in.
• Health promotion – to provide you with information about health and wellbeing, disease 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.
• Digital platforms – to improve your experience on our digital platforms such as our website, social media or emails, providing content and making our platforms easier to use.

 

Health information and other sensitive information

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.  Your health information is treated as confidential and stored in a secure manner.

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

 

What happens if you don’t provide your 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.

 

Digital platforms and cookies

We collect personal information by tracking your use of our digital platforms and associated third party platforms, such as websites, social media and online advertising, using cookies, pixels and similar technologies (including third-party tracking pixels).

These technologies may collect information such as your IP address, device or browser type, location, pages visited, interactions with our content or advertisements, and how you arrived at or left our digital platforms. This information may be collected directly by us or by third‑party service providers engaged to assist us with marketing, advertising, analytics and media measurement.

We use this information to help us understand how our digital platforms and campaigns are performing, to improve and personalise content, to conduct marketing and promotional activities, and to show you relevant information or advertising on our websites or on third‑party platforms. Information collected through these technologies is generally used in aggregated or de‑identified form for reporting and analysis purposes.

Cookies do not typically identify you by name, but they may identify your device or browser. You can choose to disable or block cookies through your browser settings. Please note that disabling cookies may affect the functionality and performance of our digital platforms.

 

Opting out of direct marketing communications

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 from us 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]

If you wish to be removed from the database used to send information about our lotteries, please phone Deloitte on 08 8407 7212, email us at [email protected] or follow the opt-out instructions in the emails.

 

Disclosure of your personal information

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, prospect research providers and community service providers.
• Research grants – administering organisations, and reviewers of grant proposals and project reports.
• Contractors, volunteers and service providers who perform services on our behalf under our authority, such as mailing houses, printers, information technology services providers (including cloud computing service providers), consultants and advisers, marketing, media and fundraising organisations.
• Home lottery service providers including our lottery consultant (SO Asher Consultants Pty Ltd), ticket administrator (Deloitte) and marketing and media consultants engaged to assist us in promoting and administering the home lottery.

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.

 

Cross-border disclosures of your personal information

We use data hosting facilities and third-party service providers to assist us with providing our products and services and engaging with you. As a result, your personal information may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside Australia such as the United States, European Union and United Kingdom. Personal information of lottery participants is disclosed to service providers located in 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.

 

How we store your personal information

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.

Research participant data is stored securely and separately, with limited access by approved researchers.  This data may be disclosed in a de-identified manner in accordance with research standards and ethics approvals.

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.

 

Debit card and credit card 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 by the payment gateway.  Your transaction information is encrypted on our servers and access to this information is restricted to authorised employees only.

 

Access to your personal information

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.

 

Updating your personal information

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.

 

Privacy queries and complaints

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.