Website disclaimer and Privacy Policy

Last Updated: September 2026

Website Disclaimer

This website is operated by Harbourside Port Stephens (“the Organisation”). By using this site, you agree to the terms below. These may change without notice, and continued use indicates your acceptance of any updated terms.
We aim to provide accurate, up-to-date information but make no warranties about its completeness or reliability. To the extent permitted by law, the Organisation accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage resulting from use of this site.

Ownership and Use of Content

All content on this site—including text, images, graphics, and branding—is the property of Harbourside Port Stephens and protected by intellectual property laws. You may view or print content for personal use only. Any commercial use or redistribution requires our prior written permission.

External Links

This website may contain links to third-party sites for convenience. These are not controlled by us, and we do not take responsibility for their content, availability, or privacy practices.

Privacy Statement

Harbourside Port Stephens is committed to protecting your privacy and complies with all relevant privacy, aged care, and data protection legislation in Australia. This Privacy Policy (Policy) describes how we collect, hold and disclose your personal information. We respect your rights to privacy under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act).

What is your personal information?

When used in this Policy, “personal information” has the meaning given in the Privacy Act. Generally, it means any information or an opinion that could be used to identify you.

What personal information do we collect?

The personal information we request from you will depend on the purposes for which we are collecting it, but may include:

  • your name, age and date of birth;
  • your contact details including your address, telephone number and email address;
  • your job title or role and department;
  • your organisation, service or educational institution details
  • banking details and tax information (employees and contractors);
  • the amount you have donated;
  • your preferences for receiving further information about our programs, events, campaigns or activities;
  • demographic information such as your age group, gender and location, to ensure our services are culturally safe and appropriate; and
  • information to verify your identity for security purposes.

We may also collect some information that is not personal information because it does not identify you or anyone else. For example, we may collect anonymous answers to surveys or aggregated information about how users use our website.

We may also collect health information with your consent and where it is reasonably necessary for one or more of our functions or activities. This may include your “My Health Record” which is an electronic summary of a person’s health information.

How do we collect your personal information

We may collect your personal information if you:

  • Submit an enquiry either electronically, in person or in paper form

  • Subscribe to updates or newsletters
  • Apply for a position or volunteer opportunity or as a contractor
  • Engage with us as a client, carer or representative
  • Contact us over the phone, in person, by email or through social media
  • Participate in public or closed surveys, questionnaires 
  • Interact with our website, mobile applications and social network accounts (such as FaceBook, Instagram or LinkedIn – the social network providers will also handle your personal information for their own purposes and have their own privacy policies).

This collection may be required to allow you to:

  • Receive our support and/or services
  • Receive information from us including alerts via email or SMS communications
  • Register for events
  • Subscribe to our publications
  • Use our website or mobile applications
  • Work with us as an employee, contractor or volunteer.

We may also collect personal information from third parties including from third party companies such as credit reporting agencies, law enforcement agencies and other government entities and specialist agencies that assist us in achieving our objectives. This collection of information from third parties would occur in circumstances such as during recruitment when conducting a criminal record check.

Wherever possible, we will try to collect personal information from you directly, rather than from another person or source, unless it is unreasonable or impractical to do so.

How do we use your information?

We use personal information only for the purpose it was collected, or for a related purpose you would reasonably expect. We will seek your consent when required and explain how your information will be used.

You have the right to:
– Access your personal information
– Request corrections
– Withdraw your consent
– Lodge a privacy complaint

We aim to respond to requests within 14 days.

We may send direct marketing communications and information about our services that we consider may be of interest to you. Where information has been collected for the purpose of health services, we will seek your consent. These communications may be sent in various forms, including mail, text message, and email, in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). 

If you indicate a preference for a method of communication, we will endeavour to use that method whenever practical to do so. In addition, at any time you may opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by contacting us (see details below) or by using opt-out facilities provided in the marketing communications, and we will then ensure your name is removed from our mailing list. 

We do not provide your personal information to other organisations for the purposes of direct marketing.

Cookies, analytics and online advertising

We use cookies and similar technologies on our website, including Google Analytics and Google Ads, to understand how our website is used and to measure the effectiveness of our advertising.

When you submit an enquiry through our website, we may share limited contact information you provide, such as your name, email address and phone number, with Google in a hashed (encoded) form that cannot be read as plain text. This is used solely to measure the effectiveness of our own advertising (a feature known as enhanced conversions). It is not used by Google to market to you on our behalf, and we never share information about your health or care needs for advertising purposes. Google handles this information in accordance with its privacy policy, available at policies.google.com/privacy.

You can opt out of personalised advertising at adssettings.google.com and manage or disable cookies through your browser settings.

Accessing, correcting and deleting your information

You may request access to your personal information collected by us and ask we correct that personal information. You can ask for access or correction by contacting us and we will usually respond within 14 days. If we refuse to give you access to, or correct, your personal information, we will notify you in writing setting out the reasons.

You may request we delete or de-identify your personal information held in our records, systems, or databases. We will do so provided it is practical and lawful.

Some information must be kept for a period before it can be permanently destroyed. For example, if you’ve engaged with any of our services, we are required to retain your records for at least seven years from the date of your last engagement.

If we are not yet permitted to destroy your information, we may archive it securely. This means we remove it from active systems and store it safely offline until it can be destroyed.

In some cases, we may be able to de-identify your information. This means we remove any details that could identify you, and non-identifying information is kept for reporting or compliance purposes. Where possible, deidentification is done alongside secure archival unless full deletion is permitted.

How we use unique identifiers?

A unique identifier is a number, letter or symbol, or a combination of any or all of those things, that is used to identify you, but does not include your name, Australian Business Number (ABN) or anything else prescribed by regulations under the Privacy Act.

We may assign our own unique identifier to you for the following purposes:

  • Effectively manage records about you by streamlining storage, retrieval, and management of individual records across systems;
  • Ensure you are correctly identified, especially in large datasets or systems where names alone may be ambiguous;
  • Securely manage access to sensitive or personal information;
  • Assist in system integration across multiple systems or services without relying on personal identifiers like names or addresses;
  • Help us comply with regulatory or operational requirements;
  • Minimise our use of and reliance on personal information.

Government related identifiers

A government related unique identifier is one that is assigned to you by a government agency for a related government purpose or service. Examples include your driver’s licence number, Criminal Record check or your Tax File Number (TFN).

We may collect the following government related unique identifiers about you for the following reasons:

Government identifier Why we collect this
Driver’s licence  To verify who you are
Criminal Record Check To verify your suitability to work or volunteer for us
Tax File Number (TFN) For payroll tax purposes
NDIS Worker Screening Check To verify your suitability to work or volunteer for us

 

However, we do not adopt, use or re-assign government related unique identifiers as our own for any reason.

Who else may see your information and why?

We may disclose your personal information to third parties who assist us to provide services or to whom we outsource services, for the purpose of providing services to you. For example, we may disclose your personal information to:

Operational partners Our ICT support service providers such as CyberCX for cybersecurity audit and emergency response, ExcelIT for 3CX VOIP Services and TimeIT for Kaseya RMM/EDR Services

Third party service providers in respect of external referrals in consultation with you such as medical providers, emergency services, government agencies/funding bodies, regulatory authoritie, legal centres or pastoral support providers
Government entities, government authorities, agency Where we are authorised and required by law to disclose this information or in accordance with our legislative mandatory reporting obligations

Further information from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission on how they collect, use and disclose personal information is available from their website – Notice of Collection
Analytics and advertising providers Google (Google Analytics and Google Ads), to measure use of our website and the effectiveness of our advertising. See the Cookies, analytics and online advertising section of this Policy.

 

We will only disclose your personal information as set out in this Privacy Policy and any specific privacy collection notice relevant to your service or engagement with us. In all other circumstances, we will endeavour to obtain your informed consent prior to disclosing your personal information unless the disclosure is authorised as required by law.

Will we disclose your personal information overseas?

In providing you with our services we do not routinely disclose personal information overseas.

A limited exception is our website analytics and advertising providers, such as Google, which may store or process information (including the hashed contact information described in the Cookies, analytics and online advertising section) on servers located outside Australia, including in the United States. Where this occurs, we take reasonable steps to ensure the information is handled consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles.

We do use social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn to facilitate our business activities and functions and post about services, employment opportunities and other information about our events and activities. If you choose to interact with us through these services, it is your responsibility to review and accept the privacy policy of that service prior to interacting with us.

In the course of managing our service, we use cloud technology for the purposes of storing our information.   We take reasonable steps to ensure service providers handling personal information maintain appropriate privacy, security and access controls.Security

We take reasonable steps to protect personal information using secure systems, restricted access, staff training, and regular monitoring. 

In the event of an unauthorised access or unauthorised disclosure or loss of your personal information that is likely to result in serious harm to you, and where remedial action has not been able to prevent the likely risk of serious harm, we will investigate and notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in accordance with the Privacy Act and Notifiable data Breach Scheme. 

A copy of our full Information Privacy Policy is available upon request.
For privacy-related enquiries, complaints or to make a request, please contact our Privacy Officer.

Phone: (02) 4984 1811

Email: [email protected]

Writing: 87 Shoal Bay Rd, Nelson Bay New South Wales 2315

 We take privacy complaints seriously. All privacy complaints will be reviewed, investigated and escalated where appropriate. Complaint management is important so we can address specific needs and improve our services.

If you have provided your details, you can expect an acknowledgement of receipt between 24 and 72 hours. Following this, the complaint is investigated, and you will be notified of an outcome on completion of the investigation if you have requested to be contacted.

If you are not happy with how we handled your complaint you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner for a formal review (www.oaic.gov.au).

(02) 4984 1811

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