Privacy Policy

At Sydney Sanctuary we are committed to protecting your privacy through keeping your personal details confidential. Information regarding your name, address and contact details whether collected through the internet, in writing or verbally will be safeguarded in accordance with the Privacy Amendment (private Sector) Act 2000. You can find out your rights under this act by accessing www.privacy.gov.au.

All Personal information gathered by Sydney Sanctuary during the provision of the counselling service will remain confidential and secure except when failure to disclose the information would place you or another person at risk from harm and if the information is requested by Federal law. Your prior approval must be obtained before another professional body (GP or lawyer) can request a written report.

Personal Information

1. Your name, address and contact details are collected either through email, telephone, or in writing. These are held in a secure location and not passed onto or revealed to any other body or organisation. They are required to ensure that contact can be maintained throughout the counselling process and other services or information can be sent out to you. If you do not want to receive details of these offers you have every right to decline by emailing or telephoning us.
2. The Counselling sessions are private and confidential and any personal details or notes taken will be stored under lock and key using a split system where your details cannot be matched to the session notes. It is normal for counsellors to take notes after a session to ensure progress and continuity in your treatment. Sydney Sanctuary may ask you for your permission to tape record your session using a dictaphone for a senior colleague to listen to. All sessions are immediately deleted after supervision.
3. Details regarding your therapy may be discussed with a supervisor during your therapy but your anonymity will always be preserved.

Internet Security

Your anonymity is preserved whilst browsing our web site unless you contact us via email. Sydney Sanctuary does monitor the amount of traffic visiting the site to identify the popularity of certain pages and collect statistics to aid future development. The data collected includes the name of your service provider, the domain name such as .com .org .net, the date and time of viewing, the browser name, the pages clicked on and the last website visited.

Your personal details are kept confidential if you do decide to email Sydney Sanctuary using the contact us page. However the internet is not a guaranteed secure medium and Sydney Sanctuary Counselling Services cannot accept legal liability for the interception or corruption of your details in transit to our site. In the unlikely event of an investigation by a law enforcement agency personal information can be made available from our service provider logs.

Accessing your Session notes

1. In most cases you are entitled to request and read your counselling session notes taken by Sydney Sanctuary although two weeks notice is required for this process.
2. Access can be denied in some cases under the terms and conditions of Privacy Amendment Act.

Complaints

If you have a complaint about the storing of your personal details then please contact the Sydney Sanctuary using the contact details below. You will receive a response no later than two weeks after the receipt of the complaint.

Contact us

If you need to update, add to or alter your personal details you contact us using the following link:

Contact Page