Privacy and Confidentiality

Basic Rights Queensland Inc respects clients’ rights to privacy and confidentiality and complies with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (as amended).

These principles govern the collection and treatment of sensitive and personal information. In particular, the principles deal with accuracy of such recorded information, the disclosure of this information, the storage of this information and the destruction of these private information records.

In order to assist you, we need to keep certain records (client files), which typically include certain personal details about you, private information about your legal needs and our legal advice to you. We only collect information from you and about you that we need in order to provide services to you.

The only people who have any access to our confidential client information are: our staff and our volunteers, who are all asked to sign confidentiality undertakings when they commence work at our centre. In court matters, of course, relevant private information will also be disclosed to the court and other parties. In a very limited number of cases, we may need to deal with a party or court overseas.

The information that you provide to us is treated carefully and confidentially. It will not be given to anyone else without your consent, unless we are legally required to do this.

The centre is also committed to protecting your personal information from misuse or loss, from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure, and will take reasonable steps to do so. Your information is kept securely in our office storage and/or in our electronic database.

You need to understand that in order to run our free legal advice and related services, we must have professional indemnity insurance. If a professional negligence claim is made against us, we have to notify our insurers about the relevant case.

By speaking with us about your case, you are accepting that your rights to privacy are subject to such additional considerations.

You are entitled to request a copy of any information we hold about you, and your request will be dealt with as soon as possible. If you wish to take your file to another service, we can release your file once we have a formal written consent from you, although we need to keep a copy of the file for our insurance records. In some circumstances, you will need to provide identification.

If you believe that we have incorrectly recorded information about you, you can ask us to add any corrected information to our records.

As part of our funding agreement, we are required to provide to funding bodies statistical information about our services. Our clients’ personal information and details of individual legal matters will not be provided to funding bodies; however, this information is necessary for BRQ’s internal records.

Once your file has been closed, BRQ is required to keep it for a period of seven years, after which time your file will be destroyed. When you complete an Authority to Act, this information is advised to you and you are asked to sign our Authority consenting to this file destruction.

There are some situations where files are kept for longer than seven years: where you were under 18 years of age when you obtained advice at our centre; where you have lost capacity for some period; or where the file involves a will or enduring power of attorney matters.

Please contact the BRQ’s director if you wish to make a complaint about BRQ’s handling of your private information. We will try to deal with your complaint as soon as possible.

If you are dissatisfied with any action we then take, you can also make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. Further information about privacy laws can be found here.

Community Legal Centres Australia

Basic Rights Queensland Inc is aligned with community legal services across Queensland and around Australia and is accredited by the Community Legal Centres Australia. The CLCS logo and trademark as seen on our website identify centres endorsed by the CLCS who are:

  • Members of their respective state and territory associations
  • Members of the group insurance scheme and comply with risk management and financial management standards
  • Subject to quality peer review

The branding process is used to create a quality mark to ensure that the public can be confident about the quality of service they can expect to receive from accredited community legal centres.

Social Media

BRQ social media channels are designed to provide information for people affected by social security or disability discrimination issues, the people who work with them and other interested parties. Conversations, posts, comments and photos should be respectful and constructive at all times.

BRQ has strict guidelines on discrimination and intimidation. We will take a strong stance on moderating and deleting content which is irrelevant, discriminatory, hateful or threatening and actions which may offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate.

When contributing your views to our social media pages, please ensure that you:

  • protect your personal privacy and that of others by not including personal information about yourself or others in your comments, (such as names, email addresses, private addresses or phone numbers)
  • post material to the page that is relevant to the topics and issues being discussed
  • represent your own views and do not impersonate or falsely represent any other person
  • do not abuse, harass or threaten others
  • do not post anything which racially or religiously vilifies others
  • do not post anything that incites, induces or aids violence, discrimination, harassment, victimisation or hatred towards others, or is likely to offend, insult or humiliate others, particularly on the basis of their race, colour, descent, national origin, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation or any disability
  • do not make defamatory or libellous comments
  • do not use insulting, provocative or hateful language
  • do not post material to the forum that infringes the intellectual property rights of others
  • do not incite, encourage or make reference to conduct that may constitute a criminal or civil offence or otherwise violate Australian law.

We encourage you to have open and honest discussions whilst being respectful of your fellow social media users.

Disclaimer

BRQ strives to review the content of our social media pages on a regular basis. However, there may be times when offensive comments that do not meet the BRQ Social Media Moderation Policy appear on the page before they can be removed.

Intellectual Property

With the exception of material posted on embedded third party websites, we own or have the rights to the intellectual property in the material that we post.

The work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation.

You do not have any rights to the material posted by other people on various social media channels and must not copy, reproduce or adapt this material unless the owner of that material expressly gives you these rights.

Copyright

Copyright in this website is held by Basic Rights Queensland Inc. The material on this website is intended to be a general information source only.

No person should act or refrain from acting solely on the basis of this material. It is not intended to be and does not constitute legal advice. Access to links or references from this site is not an endorsement by Basic Rights Queensland Inc of those references or the information contained therein, nor does the Basic Rights Queensland Inc warrant the suitability or accuracy of the information.

Basic Rights Queensland Inc does warrant that the site, references or links are free from viruses, trojans, malware, spyware or other technical capabilities which could cause harm to computer systems.

As far as permitted by law, Basic Rights Queensland Inc excludes all liability to third parties arising directly or indirectly out of their use of this website and the material contained therein or referenced to. Copyright Basic Rights Queensland Inc 2016.