We are authorised by law to collect personal information as part of receiving and responding to feedback under the Aged Care Act 2024 (the Act) and the Aged Care Rules 2025 (the Rules). We can collect this information directly from the person giving the feedback, or from another person or organisation.
Why we collect personal information
Our main purpose of collecting personal information when we receive and manage feedback is to understand people’s experiences of aged care and use that information to improve the safety and quality of services. Feedback may be positive or concerning. It can:
- give us valuable intelligence about the safety, health and wellbeing of older people accessing aged care services
- help us to detect and respond to risks to older people
- help us understand whether aged care providers, workers and governing persons are meeting their legal obligations.
We encourage people to provide feedback to us even if they don’t want to tell us their names. However, if we don’t collect personal information, it may limit our ability to address the feedback. If feedback is given anonymously, we won’t be able to ask for more information from the person who gave us the feedback.
How personal information is used
We use personal information collected in a feedback process mainly to help us understand and respond to the feedback. Sometimes we may use personal information collected during a feedback process for our other functions, for example to:
- help us prioritise our engagement with aged care providers, workers and responsible persons
- inform prevention programs and campaigns.
We may also use personal information to survey people who have given feedback about how we can improve our services.
When personal information may be disclosed
Under the Act, we can disclose (share) personal information only in certain situations, including when:
- we have permission from the person it is about
- we are authorised or required to under the Act (Chapter 7 – Information management) or other relevant laws
- it meets another exception in the Australian Privacy Principles.
Unless the feedback is anonymous or confidential, personal information may be disclosed to another party involved if needed to respond appropriately, or to explain what action we took to respond to the feedback. This is authorised by the Act.
We regularly disclose personal information to:
- the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
- Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency
- National Disability Insurance Scheme Quality and Safeguards Commission
- Services Australia
- state, territory and federal police
- state and territory coroners’ offices
- state, territory and Australian Government departments and agencies.
We'll keep personal information confidential if the person providing the feedback asks us to or if we don’t have their consent to share. Unless this will, or is likely to, put any person's safety, health or wellbeing at risk. If this happens, we'll take all reasonable steps to let the person providing the feedback know before we share any information.
Overseas disclosure of personal information
We only disclose personal information overseas when:
- overseas service providers assess our email traffic for malicious and harmful content
- we send personal information to the person it is about while they’re overseas
- we have permission from the person it is about.
We'll take all reasonable steps to notify a person before we share their information in any other situation.
How to make a complaint about us
If you’ve provided your personal information to us and are concerned about the way we handled it, you can make a complaint about us.
If you are unhappy with our response to your complaint about us, you can complain to the Australian Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner is independent and has the power to investigate complaints about possible breaches of privacy law.
More information is available on the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner website.
More information
We handle personal information in line with the Act, the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles.
Our Privacy Policy describes:
- how we collect personal information
- what type of personal information we collect
- how we use and disclose personal information
- how to access and correct the personal information we have about you
- how to make a complaint about the way we’ve handled, used or disclosed your personal information
- how we keep personal information safe.
If you have questions or concerns, call us 1800 951 822 or email us at info@agedcarequality.gov.au.
