Your privacy at Healthdirect - A simple guide for children

Healthdirect helps people in Australia get trusted health information and advice. You can talk to a doctor or nurse by phone or online, or use our website to read information and check your symptoms yourself.

Privacy is about the information we collect about you and what we do with it. You have a right to privacy — it's the law, and we must look after your information.

We only collect what we need to help you. This might be:

• your name (sometimes you can use a nickname)
• your age
• how to reach you, like a phone number
• what's going on with your health, like how you're feeling or any medicine you take
• some information about your call or visit, like the date and time
• other information we need for a specific service, like your Medicare details or whether you are an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person

This helps us give you the right care. Most of the time, you tell us this information — for example, when you call us, use our website or fill in a form. But sometimes a parent, carer or your doctor might tell us about you too so we can help you in the best way. If you use the GP Helpline, we may also look at your My Health Record.

We use your information to:

• give you health advice and help you find the right care
• call you back if we need to
• keep a record of the help we gave you, in case you need it again
• make sure our services are safe and working well
• make our services better based on what people tell us

For some services, yes. You don't always have to use your real name.

That's OK. You don't have to share everything. But sometimes, if we don't know enough, we might not be able to help you with everything you need. We'll always tell you why we're asking.

We lock your information so other people can't see it. Only our trained staff can look at it, and only when they need to help you.

Only the people helping you can see your information, like a doctor, nurse or hospital. Sometimes we also share information with parts of the government that help pay for our services, so they know our services are working well. And sometimes we might ask if you'd like to share your feedback in a survey — you can always say no. We never sell your information to anyone. We don't share it with people who don't need it.

When you use our websites, we also collect a little bit of information about how you use our pages. This helps us make our website better for you.

Sometimes a parent or carer can ask about your information to help look after you. But if you're old enough to understand and make your own choices about your health, we'll respect that — and what you tell us can stay private between you and us.

There are a few special times when we might need to share what you tell us — like if you or someone else is being hurt or is in serious danger. Sometimes the law also says we must share information, for example if a court tells us to. We'd only do this to keep you safe or because we have to. We won't share more than we need to.

Yes. We record calls so we can check we gave good advice and to help train our staff. You can tell us if you don't want your call recorded — that's OK too.

Sometimes a smart computer or AI helps us write things down or find information faster. A real person still looks after your care — the computer just helps us out. We'll always tell you when this is happening.

Yes. You can ask to see it, fix it or ask us to delete it — though sometimes we have to keep records for a while because the law says so. Just ask us or a trusted adult to help you. If your details change, please let us know so we can keep your information up to date.

If something feels wrong, or you are unhappy about how we used your information, you can tell us. You can contact us or talk to a trusted adult to help you. We'll listen and help you.

• Email: support@healthdirect.org.au
• Write to: Healthdirect Australia, PO Box K411, Haymarket NSW 1240
• Visit: about.healthdirect.gov.au/privacy-policy
• You can also talk to another government office called the Privacy Commissioner if you want more help. You can find the Commissioner at oaic.gov.au, or a trusted adult can help.

This information is a summary of our full Privacy Policy. For more detail, you can read the following:

• Our full Privacy Policy.
• The collection notice for the service you used. A collection notice tells you what information is being collected about you and why, before or when we collect it. Our notices are available on our website:

You can also call us or ask a trusted adult to help you find more information.