Privacy

Information collected by the NSW Ministry of Health

We maintain site visit data to help us improve our website. When you look at the pages on this website, the following information is automatically recorded:

• the IP address of the machine that has accessed the webpage
• your server address
• your top level domain name (for example, .com, .gov, .au, etc.)
• the date and time of your visit to the site
• the pages accessed and documents downloaded
• the type of browser and operating system used.

The information collected during each visit is used to identify patterns of usage of the website. To improve the services we provide, we may extract and publish aggregated information about usage patterns from these records to determine ‘web trends’. This information is also analysed to show broken links in our website, bottlenecks, and other site problems. We use this information to maintain site efficiency.

No attempt will be made to identify anonymous users or their browsing activities unless legally compelled to do so, such as in the event of an investigation.

NSW Ministry of Health will not disclose or publish information that identifies individual machines, or potentially identifies sub-groupings of addresses, without consent or otherwise in accordance with NSW privacy legislation.

Cookies

This site contains cookies. A cookie is a small text file that is sent back to your computer’s hard drive from a host web site. They record your preferences in relation to your use of a site and provide us with other information about your enquiry that allows us to recognise you in the future. The benefit is that the computer remembers your details so that you do not need to re-enter personal data each time you fill out a form.

You may wish to set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether or not to allow it on to your hard drive. However, if you decide to not accept our cookies, you may be asked to resubmit information each time you visit a specific page. Also some of our web pages may not display properly or you may not be permitted to access certain information.

The cookies on our site do not read the information on your hard drive or make your computer perform any unauthorised actions.

Exceptions

We may gather more extensive information than stated above, in the following circumstances:

• unauthorised attempts to access files which are not published on the website
• unauthorised tampering or interference with files published on the website
•  unauthorised attempts to index the contents of the website by other websites
• attempts to intercept messages of other website users
• communications which are defamatory, abusive, vilify individuals or groups or which give rise to a suspicion that an offence is being committed
• attempts to otherwise compromise the security of the web server, breach the laws of the State of New South Wales or Commonwealth of Australia, or interfere with the enjoyment of the website by other users.

In accordance with NSW privacy legislation, we may make disclosures to relevant authorities where the use of the website raises a suspicion that an offence is being, or has been, committed. In the event of an investigation we may be required to provide access to data to a enforcement agency should they have a lawful authority to inspect our logs or other information.

Privacy Practices of Linked Websites

This website contains links to other websites. NSW Ministry of Health is not responsible for the privacy practices of any third parties nor are they responsible for the material contained in a website that is linked to this site.