Mindstate Psychology's privacy policy describes how and why Mindstate Psychology collects, uses and otherwise handles your information when you access our services.
Please take a moment to familiarise yourself with our privacy policy, and contact us or your treating practitioner if you have any questions.
This document describes the privacy policy of Mindstate Psychology Pty Ltd (“Mindstate Psychology”, “Mindstate”, “we”, “us”, “our”) and the individual practitioners (“practitioners”)who work as independent contractors at the Mindstate Psychology offices.
To provide our services (including clinical and forensic psychology, neurofeedback, threat assessment and professional development and training) Mindstate Psychology needs to collect your personal and health information. As a health service, Mindstate Psychology is bound by the legal requirements of the Australian Privacy Principles set out in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
Mindstate Psychology and our practitioners collects personal information to enable us to provide our services. The information we collect fits into one of two categories:
There is an ethical obligation for psychologists to make and keep accurate notes about all consultations. You cannot request information to be excluded from the practitioner’s file. If you do not wish for your personal information to be collected in a way anticipated by this Privacy Policy, Mindstate Psychology may not be able to provide services to you.
The practitioners work independently and are responsible for storing their own client’s clinical information. Mindstate Psychology maintains the storage of administrative records. You can be assured that the practitioners and administration follow both Australian Psychological Society guidelines and Australian Privacy Principles. Please speak to your treating practitioner for specific concerns regarding the storage of your clinical information. Please contact Mindstate Psychology’s reception for issues regarding the maintenance of administrative records, including making any changes. Additionally, if a practitioner leaves the practice, Mindstate Psychology will no longer have access to any clinical notes but will maintain the administrative record.
While you are entitled to withdraw your consent to engage with our services, we are required by law to maintain a copy of both your administrative record and case notes. These records will be stored in accordance with this privacy policy and relevant legislation.
To the best of our knowledge, the computer systems used for administration and clinical record storage are based in Australia, encrypted, and protected. A client’s personal information is not disclosed to overseas or Australian recipients unless the client consents or such disclosure is otherwise required by law. Your personal information will never be used, sold, rented, or disclosed for any purpose other than to provide our services in accordance with consent gained.
In the event that unauthorised access, disclosure or loss of a client’s personal information occurs, Mindstate Psychology will activate our cyber incident response plan and use all reasonable endeavours to minimise any risk of consequential harm. If there is a risk of consequential harm, Mindstate will notify you in accordance with the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme (Part IIIC of the Privacy Act).
To provide our services, Mindstate Psychology may be required to disclose personal information to third parties. Disclosure may include, but is not limited to:
Please be aware that the general principles of privacy can be wavered if failure to disclose information places yourself or another person at risk. In other words, if you are deemed a risk of suicide or harming another, we are required to disclose information in order to manage that situation.
In the case of legal proceedings, Mindstate Psychology maybe required to disclose personal or health information to the Court, your lawyer, or an insurer participating in the proceedings. If you have a legal representative acting for you and that person seeks information about you, Mindstate will not release that information without your written authorisation.
Where possible, Mindstate Psychology will endeavour to advise you about the possibility of disclosing personal or health information to a Court.
Any request to access your clinical records must be made inwriting and addressed to your treating psychologist. To access your administrative record, a request must be made in writing and addressed to Mindstate Psychology. Be aware that you will be charged a fee (including for photocopying) for Mindstate Psychology to provide you with a copy of any information requested. Please ask for details when you make your request, as you will be solely liable for any associated costs.
In some circumstances, Mindstate Psychology or the practitioner has the right to refuse access to your personal information. This may include (but is not limited to) where the information is not about you but is about your child; or where release could cause an unreasonable impact on you or harm you.
If your information was used for a forensic assessment or Court report, we might be able to provide you with a copy of your information which we have on file. Please note that some Courts and other organisations prohibit us from releasing information without their permission. In most cases we cannot distribute any assessments or report(s) to you directly.
Please note that your file is the property of the practitioner, and the administrative record is the property of Mindstate Psychology. If you request access to your file, we can only provide a copy, not the original file. Additionally, if a practitioner leaves the practice, Mindstate Psychology will no longer have access to any clinical notes but will maintain the administrative record.
Mindstate Psychology may collect anonymised, aggerate data when you access or interact with websites, social media pages, marketing campaigns or other digital services we own and operate.
This includes data like the number of visitors or clicks, search terms, how long a page was viewed for, the region and country of the visitor, or the type of device. This does not include personal or individually identifiable information such as IP addresses, specific locations(suburb or address), names, or email addresses.
This data is collected through Google Analytics (when interacting with the Mindstate Website or Google Ads) and Meta Business Suite(when interacting with Facebook or Instagram pages or ads). This data may be collected through cookies, web beacons or other similar technologies.
Mindstate Psychology only uses this data to understand how individuals:
At no point is this data individually identifiable and as such we are unable to provide copies of this information. If you do not wish to have your data collected through Google Analytics, Google provides an opt-out browser add-on here.
Mindstate Psychology uses SMS messaging to communicate with current clients, primarily to remind them of upcoming appointments. When you become a client with Mindstate Psychology, your mobile number is added to your profile and you will receive SMS reminders automatically. We do not use your phone number for marketing purposes, and at no time is it disclosed to any other party.
If you do not wish to receive automated appointment reminders via SMS, please contact our reception team in writing who can update your profile.
Email marketing is only used to notify subscribers of updates to our professional development services, such as workshop schedules, upcoming training, or supervision. At no point is your email automatically entered into this pool. You must explicitly provide your email and consent for us to use your information in this way.
When you have specifically provided your information for our email marketing newsletter, it is processed by Mailchimp but controlled by us. The information remains encrypted, secured, and protected.
If you wish to opt-out of email marketing, you may utilise the ‘Unsubscribe’ link, located at the bottom of every email. You may also contact us in writing and request that your details be removed from the Professional Development email marketing list.
Marketing emails may contain beacons or other technologies that enable us to understand how people engage with our emails, in order to improve them.
Mindstate Psychology recognises the value of feedback as we continually seek to improve our services. Feedback is typically collected formally via designated forms, however, it may also be provided by you in writing. Feedback can also be provided informally by making comments to our Staff or Practitioners. Complaints are not considered feedback and are not included in this clause.
All feedback is deidentified and aggregated. Feedback is stored securely by Mindstate Psychology in accordance with the “Storage of Information” clause of this Privacy Policy. Please note that as feedback is kept de-identified, we cannot provide you with access to feedback you have submitted.
Feedback is only used to improve our facilities and services. While valued by us, the provision of feedback is entirely voluntary. Please note that there are no grounds for compensation if Mindstate Psychology incorporates, actions or otherwise uses any feedback you have provided.
If you are not satisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information, you may wish to lodge a formal complaint about the use of, disclosure of, or access to your personal information. We require any complaint to be made in writing to the Director of Mindstate Psychology and to the individual practitioner. We will determine who needs to address the issue and respond to your complaint within 30 days.
If our response is not satisfactory, you can further your complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. This can be done by phone at 1300 363 992, online at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's Website or by post to Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, GPO Box 5218, Sydney, NSW 2001.
Mindstate Psychology reserves the right to update this policy periodically, and without prior notice to you, to reflect changes either within our practice or in accordance with relevant laws. Any changes to the policy will become effective upon publishing the updated version to the Mindstate website. Continuing to access Mindstate Psychology’s services after an updated version of this policy is published constitutes as acceptance of the revised policy. Mindstate Psychology will endeavour to provide notice about any significant changes to the policy.
The protection of our client’s personal and health information is a priority for Mindstate Psychology. If you have any questions about Mindstate’s privacy policy, please contact Mindstate via email or another form of written communication. Should you wish to access additional copies of this privacy policy, it is available on the Mindstate website (here) or at reception.
Mindstate Psychology can be contacted by:
The most up to date contact details are available on the Mindstate Psychology website Contact Page.
Remember that all complaints and requests must be submitted in writing.
