ACDP Privacy

CSIRO ACDP Diagnostic Service - PRIVACY NOTICE

Your personal information is protected by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and CSIRO ACDP will handle your personal information in accordance with this Act, the National Health & Medical Research Council (NH&MRC) National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007, updated 2018), or as otherwise required by law. Please note that the information contained in this privacy notice is specific to the activities of the CSIRO Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP) diagnostic service. For general information about how CSIRO handles your personal information, including how to access or correct your personal information and our complaints handling process, please see the CSIRO Privacy Policy here: https://www.csiro.au/en/about/policies/privacy.

What personal information do we collect?

Your personal and sensitive information that we collect is outlined in the table below:

Identity	Medical
Name	Referring practitioner (veterinarian/doctor)
Address	Diagnostic tests requested
Date of Birth	Diagnostic test results
Email address	Diagnostician clinical notes
Telephone number	Referring practitioner clinical notes
	Disease status
	Vaccination status

How we collect this information

CSIRO ACDP will generally collect this information from you directly (including entries made on the request for testing). However, in certain circumstances, we may collect this information from third parties, such as other persons or entities who ask us to perform diagnostic services on your behalf. While we endeavour to only do so where it is unreasonable or impracticable to collect the information directly from you, by proceeding to use this service we take it that you have consented to the collection of your personal information from other persons or entities. If you have any concerns about this, please contact us before proceeding.

Why do we need your personal information and what do we do with it?

Delivery of our diagnostic service

We collect, maintain, use and disclose personal information about you in order to provide appropriate diagnostic services as requested.

We may disclose diagnostic test results which may contain your personal information:

• to the person or entity who requested the diagnostic service (which may be, for example, your veterinarian);
• to anyone else specified in the request for the services (e.g. your veterinarian may request that we disclose your diagnostic results to other persons);
• where the pathology service was requested by a government department, to that government department;
• to anyone else you request or consent to; or
• to any other party we are authorised or required to disclose to by law (in accordance with the Privacy Act).

For some specific pathology tests it is accepted clinical practice that we may not only disclose the test result for the test/s currently requested, but also the results of all tests that we have performed for you previously (regardless of who requested those tests), as this may be necessary to effectively manage the diagnostic case. These test results may contain your personal information. In some circumstances, it may be necessary for us to obtain confirmatory testing from a third-party laboratory or, for highly specialised diagnostic services, we may need to arrange for a reference laboratory to perform the required diagnostic services on our behalf. In these circumstances, we will disclose personal information about you to these third parties for the purpose of obtaining the necessary diagnostic services.

Operating our business and sending accounts

We may use your personal information as necessary to manage our accounts and obtain payment for the services we provide. Specifically, we will disclose your personal information to CSIRO Finance (Accounts Receivable) to obtain payment from, as appropriate, you, an insurer or from any organisation responsible for payment of any part of your account. This may also extend to disclosure of your personal information to a debt collector or a credit-checking agency. If the circumstances require, we may disclose your personal information to our insurers. We may also use your personal information to give you important information about our products and services.

Teaching and research

We may use your personal information for internal teaching purposes or to monitor, evaluate, plan and improve the services we provide. Your personal data may be used for data analytics and research purposes. Where such analytics and research are shared with external parties, we will only report de-identified information (information that does not contain any personal details that may reasonably identify you).

External entities undertaking research (such as Universities, Government bodies, Specialist Veterinarians, etc.) may sometimes request data from our veterinary records. We will only disclose de-identified data in response to these requests.

University students and external visitors undertaking placements with us may have access to and use your personal information when looking at our records. Students are bound by a confidentiality agreement that strictly forbids disclosure of personal information viewed during these clinical placements.

Overseas disclosures

CSIRO does not intend to disclose your personal information overseas. However, some incidental overseas disclosure may occur in the ordinary course of business, particularly where individuals are located overseas, or where CSIRO engages overseas-based service providers to facilitate its operations. By participating in the project, you consent to the possible transfer of your personal information to persons or servers located outside of Australia and you acknowledge that this information may not be subject to the requirements of the Privacy Act. If you have any concerns about this, you should contact us before proceeding.

Other disclosures

We may be required by law to disclose your personal information without your consent.

Many of the diagnostic tests provided by CSIRO ACDP are used for the detection of notifiable diseases. Under Australian State and Territory legislation, where results of a diagnostic test indicate the possible presence of a listed notifiable disease, CSIRO is required by law to notify the responsible authority for animal health in the relevant jurisdiction. In such cases, this notification may include the disclosure of your personal information. The specific acts which outline this responsibility are:

Consent

By proceeding to use the ACDP diagnostic service, you acknowledge that you have read and understand this privacy notice, and consent to CSIRO/ACDP’s handling of your personal (including sensitive) information in accordance with it.

Please note that you may choose not to disclose your personal information to us. However, if you do not provide this information, CSIRO ACDP may not be able to provide diagnostic testing services or provide full interpretation of diagnostic test results.

If you would like to access or correct any of the personal information we hold, or if you have any concerns about how we handle your personal information or wish to make a privacy complaint, please visit CSIRO’s Privacy Policy, or contact us (see below) or CSIRO’s Privacy Officer (privacy@csiro.au).

How to contact us

You can contact CSIRO ACDP in the following ways:

• Email: acdp-accessions@csiro.au


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Privacy Policy Last Updated: 24 April 2024