Information for people using The Orange Door service
This information collection notice explains how we will manage your personal, sensitive and health information. The Orange Door is committed to protecting your information in accordance with applicable privacy laws and policies.
Why do we collect and use your information?
The Orange Door collects only relevant personal, sensitive and health information about you, and other people related to your situation, for the purpose of providing our service. Examples of this information may include:
Personal information
- first, middle name and last name
- demographic information
- family circumstances, and relationship details.
Sensitive information
- cultural identity
- sexual orientation.
Health information
- information about health conditions
- whether an individual identifies as a person with a disability.
The collection of this information helps us to fulfil our mission of providing the best possible support to our clients. Having access to this information allows us to deliver effective assistance by understanding the clients’ situation. This greatly improves the quality of the services provided by The Orange Door, facilitating more accurate risk assessment, and ultimately, contributing to the safety and well-being of our clients.
Unfortunately, if you do not provide this information, then we may not be able to provide the full range of services. However, your participation in The Orange Door services is entirely voluntary and you may withdraw at any time.
By providing your personal, sensitive or health information you agree that it will be used and disclosed by The Orange Door in accordance with our privacy policy. Your information is also shared with the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) as it has a responsibility for overseeing how The Orange Door delivers its services to you.
This information sharing arrangement is in accordance with this notice and The Orange Door privacy policy.
You can also review DFFH’s privacy policy.
You understand that where safe and possible to do so, when you share personal, sensitive or health information about others, or if advocating for another person, you have their consent to make disclosures, and understand that you should advise them of the contents of this collection notice and how to access it.
The Orange Door will only collect, use and disclose your information (including personal and health information) in line with relevant laws, including the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic), the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic), the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 (Vic), the Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (Vic) and the Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005 (Vic).
How do we collect and use your information?
When you engage with The Orange Door for a service over the phone or in person, we will ask information about yourself, your family, and your situation, which will contain personal, health or sensitive information about yourself and others. The information you provide us will be kept on paper and electronic records and may need to be updated over time.
We will use the personal, sensitive and health information you disclose to assist us to provide our services to you and to carry out your requests. We may also use or disclose the personal, sensitive and health information that we collect about you for other purposes including the following:
- where we suspect that unlawful activity has been, is being or may be engaged in
- a specific purpose disclosed to you when we collected the information
- any purpose required or authorised by law
- for purposes relating to our research, planning, product and service development, security and testing (de-identified data only).
We are committed to protecting your privacy. However, we may need to get information about you from partner agencies; we will ask you for permission before doing so when safe, appropriate and possible.
We may also need to share the information you provide with DFFH and partner agencies. If you consent to be referred from The Orange Door to one of our partner agencies, we will share relevant information to help that service assist you. This can assist you by limiting the times you re-tell all the details of your story to another service. The Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme(opens in a new window) and Child Youth and Families Act(opens in a new window) allows us to share this information.
If we have concerns for your safety or the safety of someone else, we may need to share information with a partner agency, without seeking your consent first, for safety reasons.
There may be other circumstances when we are required to share your information. This could be to comply with legal requests for information or files, for example, when we receive a subpoena from the Court. If this happens, your safety is of paramount consideration. We will work to minimise any risk to you when complying with the request, by carefully reviewing the subpoena and negotiating with the Court or lawyers in determining the scope and format of the documents being provided so that safety is protected. In some circumstances, we will contact you to discuss the implications of your information being shared with the Court and take any necessary actions to protect your safety.
The Orange Door prioritises a victim-survivor’s right to safety and is authorised to share information about a person using violence without their consent, if amongst other things, the disclosure will lessen or prevent a serious threat to an individual’s life, health, safety or welfare.
How do you gain access to your information?
You have the right to request access to your information that is held by The Orange Door at any time. We can usually provide this unless it would affect someone else’s privacy or safety.
If you would like a copy of your information from The Orange Door you can make a Freedom of Information request. The appropriate contact information can be found here: Family Safety Victoria | vic.gov.au (www.vic.gov.au) under the heading Freedom of Information. If you have any privacy queries or would like to update your information, please contact The Orange Door in your area(opens in a new window).
What happens to your information?
The Orange Door may store personal information that you provide in an online database operated by DFFH. This online database helps The Orange Door to organise your information, which assists in efficiently providing services to you.
Only authorised personnel from The Orange Door will be able to access your personal information through the database. DFFH technical support staff (which may include third party contractors and staff from other Victorian Government bodies) will also have limited access to the database for the purpose of maintaining and improving the system. These staff are not permitted to use the information for unrelated purposes, or to share the information with any third parties. DFFH collects statistics and data about how The Orange Door is using the database. This helps DFFH to understand how to improve the database and its family violence risk assessment tools, and to assess whether the database and tools are being used effectively.
From time to time, DFFH, either directly or through approved research partners, may also use statistics and data from the online database for the purpose of research and system improvements. These statistics and data will contain de-identified information that does not identify anyone individually.
Feedback and complaints
We value your feedback as it gives us the opportunity to look at the way we do things and improve our services. We recognise the need for you to feel and be safe in your interactions with us. You can provide feedback - complaint, compliment, or general feedback and if you prefer you can do so anonymously.
If you choose to provide your feedback anonymously, we:
- may not be able to investigate your feedback fully
- will not be able to contact you if we need more information
- will not be able to let you know the outcome of your feedback.
If you would like to provide feedback about your experience with The Orange Door, please fill out the feedback form.
Should you have any privacy queries or a complaint about the way your privacy has been handled, please contact The Orange Door in your area and ask for the Manager or email privacy@dffh.vic.gov.au(opens in a new window). If you are not satisfied with The Orange Door’s response to your privacy query or complaint, you may also contact:
- The Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner, in relation to personal or sensitive information (PO Box 24274 Melbourne VIC 3001 or by email to privacy@ovic.gov.vic.au(opens in a new window).
- The Health Complaints Commissioner, in relation to health information, or in person/by mail at Level 26, 570 Bourke Street, Melbourne Victoria 3000, or by phone at 1300 582 113).
Download a copy of The Orange Door collection notice:
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