Privacy policy

Beyond Blue is committed to protecting your privacy and complying with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and other relevant laws in relation to the management of personal information.

This Privacy Policy (Policy) describes how we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information and should be read together with our Terms of Use.

What is 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.

How do we collect personal information?

We may collect your personal information if you:

use our Support Services, which are delivered by Remedy Healthcare, which is a subsidiary of Australian Unity Limited;
seek access to our Be You services which are delivered by third party providers;
seek access to our New Access coaching service which is delivered by third party providers;
use our Beyond Blue online forums;
contact us over the phone, in person, by email or webchat, or through social media;
participate in public or closed surveys, questionnaires or conference events;
register for face-to-face or digital events (such as webinars);
interact with our websites, mobile applications and social network accounts (such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram or LinkedIn – the social network providers will also handle your personal information for their own purposes and have their own privacy policies);
donate to Beyond Blue, participate in fundraising activities or partner with us;
donate to another organisation and consent to receive information from like-minded organisations such as Beyond Blue; or
apply for a position with us (either as an employee, as a volunteer or as a contractor).

This collection may be required to allow you to:

receive mental health support from our services;
be referred to other mental health services, and other support services;
receive New Access coaching;
register with Be You;
make a donation;
join our websites as a registered user;
receive information from us including alerts via email or SMS communications;
apply to hold a fundraising event;
register to use forums;
register as a Blue Voices member;
register as a volunteer;
register as a Beyond Blue Ambassador or Speaker;
download or order resources;
access services for your educational institution or organisation;
participate in professional learning modules;
subscribe to our publications;
receive information about or become involved in our programs, campaigns or other initiatives;
use our websites and mobile applications; or
work with us as an employee, contractor or volunteer.

What personal information do we collect?

We only use or disclose your personal information for the purposes for which you gave it to us, or for a secondary purpose if permitted by law, which includes:

where you have consented to that purpose;
where you would reasonably expect us to use or disclose your information for that purpose, and where that purpose related to the primary purpose of collection (or, in the case of sensitive information, directly related to the primary purpose);
where required or authorised by or under an Australian law or a court/tribunal order; and
where a permitted situation exists under the Privacy Act, such as lessening or preventing a serious threat to the life, health or safety of an individual, or to public health or safety, or locating a person reported as missing.

The purpose for which we will use or disclose your personal information will depend on the purposes for which we are collected it, but may include the following purposes:

to provide you with services;
to allow you to obtain access to the interactive elements of our mobile applications and websites (including the online forums, our campaign websites and all professional learning);
to provide you with a more personalised experience on our mobile applications and websites;
to help you reset or recover your password for our mobile applications and websites;
to provide you with the information, resources or merchandise you have requested;
to involve you in programs, campaigns, research, fundraising, activities or other initiatives undertaken by Beyond Blue;
to process your donation or order;
to show your name and the amount of any donation or sponsorship you may make on our website (unless you choose a private or anonymous donation);
for the marketing and research purposes of Beyond Blue, its contractors or service providers;
for internal administrative purposes;
to respond to enquiries in relation to the Beyond Blue Support Services or educational programs, general website feedback or assistance, or media enquiries;
to update our records and keep your contact details up to date;
for research, advice and information, including for benchmarking purposes;
to send you communications about our programs, events, campaigns or activities if you have agreed to receive our emails in accordance with your communication preferences (you will be provided with an opportunity in each email to decline to receive any further emails from us by unsubscribing – if you are a registered member of our websites, you can also edit your communication preferences via your member account);
in the case of marketing automation, to improve the emails that are sent to you and to improve the personalisation, services, programs, content and resources that are offered to you;
to understand how you interact with us by recording information about you in a Customer Relationship Management system (for example, that you are a volunteer and a donor if that is the case);
to enable like-minded organisations to contact you with information that may be of interest to you (if you have consented to this);
to assess any application from you to work with us; and
if you lodge a complaint or query with us, to process and respond to your complaint or query.

If you access the interactive elements of our mobile applications and websites (including online forums and Be You professional learning), only your display name will be shown online. We recommend that you do not post information online that may identify you or anyone else such as your address, email address or phone number. If you do post personal information online, your personal information may be identified, recovered and displayed by internet search engines.

Regardless of where in the world you reside, Beyond Blue may process and store your personal information in Australia.

Disclosure of personal information

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:

our Support Service provider, Remedy Healthcare, which is a subsidiary of Australian Unity Limited;
our delivery and fundraising partners;
event organisers and venues;
our administrative service providers (such as IT services providers, telecommunications providers, analytics service providers and payment processors);
our marketing service providers (such as email automation providers and mailing houses);
our professional advisors (such as accountants, auditors and lawyers) and insurers; and
in the case of Be You professional learning, the funder of Be You, the Australian Government Department of Health.

We take every effort to not directly disclose personal information to recipients located overseas without your consent.

Some of our third-party service providers may store personal information overseas when providing support or other services. For example:

traffic information is disclosed to Google when you visit our websites and mobile applications - Google stores information across multiple countries; and
when you communicate with us through a social network service such as Facebook or Twitter - the social network provider and its partners may collect and hold your personal information overseas across multiple countries.

Security of your personal information

We take reasonable steps to ensure the security of all information we collect, including that the information is protected from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. For example, your personal information is maintained in a secure environment, which can be accessed only by authorised personnel. However, no data transmission over the internet or information stored on servers accessible through the internet can be guaranteed to be fully secure.

In addition, we take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify your personal information once we no longer need it or have been directly instructed by you to permanently remove or supress your personal information.

Our websites and mobile applications

Cookies

In some cases, we may also collect your personal information through the use of “cookies”. When you access one of our websites, we may send a “cookie” (which is a small summary file containing a unique ID number) to your computer or internet enabled device. This allows us to recognise your computer or internet enabled device, and whether you have already registered and greet you each time you visit our websites. It also enables us to keep track of services you view so that, if you consent, we can send you news about those services.
We also use cookies to measure traffic and engagement patterns, to determine which areas of our website have been visited and to measure overall, aggregate transaction patterns.

We use this to research our website visitor’s habits and what they are looking for and accessing, so that we can continually improve our services, programs, content and resources.

If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set your browser so that your computer does not accept them.

Website and Mobile Application Analytics (Including remarketing tools)

Google Analytics

Our websites and mobile applications use Google Analytics, a product provided by Google, to help us understand traffic and usage in order to help improve our services, programs, content and resources. Our websites and mobile applications also use the following Google Analytics Advertising Features:

Remarketing and Impression Reporting
Demographics and Interest Reporting
Government (Commonwealth, State, Territory and Department) reporting

Google Analytics does not identify individual users or associate your device’s Internet Protocol address (IP address) with any other data held by Google.

By using our websites and mobile applications, you consent to the processing of information about you by Google in the manner described in Google's Privacy Policy and for the purposes set out above. You can opt out of Google Analytics if you disable or refuse the Google cookie, disable JavaScript, or use the opt-out service provided by Google.

Facebook analytics

Our websites use analytics products provided by Facebook (including Facebook Pixel), which track your actions on our websites and collect information about your device, whether or not you have a Facebook account or are logged into Facebook.

By using our websites, you consent to Beyond Blue disclosing this information to Facebook and Facebook using the information about you in the manner described in Facebook’s Data Policy.

You can opt out of Facebook analytics by logging into Facebook and visiting the App Settings page (or go there manually via the Settings Menu > Apps). From there, click the "Edit" button under "Apps, Websites and Games" Click "Turn Off."

Our Beyond Now mobile application does not use analytics products provided by Facebook.

Marketing Tools

Our websites use marketing tools (including Meta and LinkedIn Pixel), which track your actions on our websites and collect information about your device and actions, whether or not you have a Meta and/or LinkedIn account or are logged into your account.

We use these tools to:

deliver personalised and relevant advertising to you, on Beyond Blue, and on third party websites;
collect statistics about how our website is accessed;
monitor the effectiveness of marketing campaigns; and
measure conversions.

By using our websites, you consent to Beyond Blue disclosing this information to marketing platforms – for example to Meta or LinkedIn who may use information about you in the manner described in their Data or Privacy Policies.

You can find out more on opting out of Meta and LinkedIn analytics by visiting:

Siteimprove analytics

We also use Site Improve to identify audience habits and behaviours so that content and user experience-related issues can be resolved, enhancing the overall website experience for users.

Marketing automation tools

Our websites use marketing automation tools that send communications (such as email or SMS) using several different services. Each service uses tracking technologies primarily to understand what subjects are interesting to you by monitoring whether your emails are opened, and links are followed. This information is then used to deliver more personalized and relevant communications to you.

Registered users IP address stored on website profile

We also collect your device’s last known IP address and, if you are a registered user, store it against your website profile.

Accessing and correcting personal 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 30 days. If we refuse to give you access to, or correct, your personal information, we will notify you in writing setting out the reasons.

Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme

In the event of any 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.

Complaints about your privacy

If you believe your privacy has been breached or you have a complaint about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us in writing. We will respond within a reasonable period (usually within 30 days from lodgement).

If you are not satisfied with our response, then you may lodge a formal complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (for more information, please see www.oaic.gov.au).

Changes to this Policy

This Policy may change from time to time. Any updated versions of this Policy will be posted on our websites and will be effective from the date of posting.

This Policy was last reviewed and updated on 20 February 2024.

Meanings

References to “Beyond Blue”, "we", "us" and "our" are references to Beyond Blue Limited ACN 093 865 840.

How to contact us

Email

privacy@beyondblue.org.au Beyond Blue Limited ACN 093 865 840

Post

Attention: The Privacy Officer, Beyond Blue

Suite 501, 278 Flinders Lane Melbourne, Victoria 300

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