Terms & Conditions

Please read this Terms of Use Agreement carefully.

Last updated: April 2026

PRIVACY POLICY

1. PURPOSE

This Privacy Policy explains how Melanoma Patients Australia, a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee (we, us or our), collects and handles your Personal Information, including sensitive and health information. It describes the types of information we collect and hold, why we do so, how we keep the information secure, how to access and correct the information and how to make a privacy complaint.

2. OUR PRIVACY OBLIGATIONS AND COMMITMENTS

Melanoma Patients Australia is required to comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) in the Privacy Act when collecting, holding, using and disclosing personal information, including sensitive and health information

Melanoma Patients Australia is committed to protecting the personal and health information it collects and handles in accordance with those laws in the course of performing its general services and operations (Services), such as:

providing support and advice services to persons with cancer, their families, health professionals and the community;
funding, reviewing or carrying out research or evaluation activities;
conducting our health awareness and cancer prevention and education programs; and
conducting fundraising and advocacy activities.

Further information about how long different types of information are retained is contained in Melanoma Patients Australia’s Data Retention Policy and Data Retention Schedule.

3. POLICY SCOPE/APPLICATION

In this Privacy Policy, references to “you” or “your” are references to persons with cancer and their next of kin who access our Services, employees, job applicants, committee members, donors and potential donors, research program collaborators and partners, recipients of support services, participants in advocacy campaigns, participants in education and training programs, health promotion projects or fundraising campaigns, health professionals, suppliers, volunteers, users of our social media pages, applications and websites, our contractors and service providers, and any other individuals we deal with in the course of managing our organisation and providing our Services.

4. DEFINITIONS

4.1 What is personal information?

Personal information is information or an opinion, whether it is true or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can be reasonably ascertained, from that information or opinion.

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, a reference to personal information should be read as including sensitive and health information, unless otherwise specified.

4.2 What is sensitive information?

Sensitive information is a subset of personal information which is afforded a higher level of protection under the APPs. This includes information which relates to an individual’s race or ethnic origin, political opinions or memberships of a political association, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association or union, sexual preferences or practices, criminal record, health information, genetic information that is not otherwise health information about an individual and biometric information. Our collection, use and disclosure of personal information, including sensitive information, will comply with the APPs.

4.3 What is health information?

Health information is personal information that is also information or an opinion about the physical, mental or psychological health of an individual, including an illness, disability or injury of an individual, an individual’s expressed wishes for the future provision of their healthcare or a health service provided to an individual. Health information also includes personal information that is collected to provide a health service, or personal information that is genetic information about an individual that is predictive of the individual’s health. Our collection, use and disclosure of health information will also comply with the HPPs.

5. WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

5.1 Types of information we collect

We collect personal information from individuals we provide our Services to, individuals who help us provide our Services and other individuals who interact with us. For more information about the types of people about whom we may collect personal information, please see the description of ‘you’ and ‘your’ at the beginning of this Privacy Policy.

The personal information we collect will ultimately depend on who you are, how you have engaged with us and the purpose for which it is collected. We only collect personal information that is reasonably necessary to perform our functions or activities.

The kinds of personal information we may collect when dealing with you may include:

your name, date of birth and gender;
your contact information including address, postcode, email, telephone number and mobile number;
your details regarding ethnicity, country of birth, whether you are an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and preferred language spoken at home;
payment or billing information (including bank account details, credit card details, billing address and invoice details) for donations or the supply of our Services;
your current location, if this is relevant to the Services we are providing and you consent to this collection;
details relating to the Services we have supplied you;
information about your preferences, online behaviour, and how you access and use our Services or otherwise interact with us (including by making donations); and
your username and password for any accounts set up on our websites.

We may also collect the following types of personal information from you if you are a:

Person affected by cancer, support person, carer and next of kin:

your health information and medical history, in particular your history with, and relationship to, cancer including the type of cancer you, your next of kin, or the person you care for has experienced, your/their treatments, genetic and biometric information.

Job applicant, employee, volunteer or contractor:

your employment history, qualifications, resume and job references;
your fitness for work, including police checks and security information from government agencies or departments (including Working with Children checks), right to work checks (including passport information) and licensing checks (e.g. status of professional qualifications), health assessments and other personal information as part of your job application (only if appropriate and in compliance with the law);
next of kin and emergency contact information;
your banking details to process payments, such as wages;
superannuation details;
government related identifiers, such as your Tax File Number in compliance with the law; and
any other information relevant to your employment or engagement with us.

Public participant or potential participant in Melanoma Patients Australia fundraising and support schemes and campaigns:

your opinions via surveys and questionnaires;
your insurance policies and details, which are only collected in limited circumstances, such as where qualification for a particular Melanoma Patients Australia program requires you to have certain insurances (for example, running an event);
details relating to donations you have made or intend to make to us (including bequests), including your name, email and physical address, and other personal information you provide to us or that we store in connection with your donation or potential donation; and
information relating to any volunteering or fundraising activities you engage in with us.

Participant in Melanoma Patients Australia education and training programs:

your name and your educational and professional background;
personal information relevant to making travel or event bookings, including visa status, passport details (for international travel), frequent flyer program details and relevant health information (e.g. dietary restrictions);
photographs for identification purposes; and
your opinions via surveys and questionnaires.

Health professional:

your role or job title;
information about your profession and qualifications;
your employing or engaging organisation; and
your professional interests or areas of expertise.

Member of our Consumer groups or focus group/interview participant:

any disability status you may have;
your LGBTIQA+ identity;
your role or job title;
information about your profession and qualifications;
your employing or engaging organisation;
your professional interests or areas of expertise;
any actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest relevant to your participation;
your opinions via surveys and questionnaires; and
any other personal information that you provide to us.

5.2 Dealing with us anonymously or using a pseudonym

Where practicable, you can deal with us anonymously or using a pseudonym. You can also choose to not provide us with some or all of your Personal Information. When you are registering for one of our services, we require you to use your name and to provide a valid email address.

6. HOW DO WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

6.1 From you

Where reasonably practicable, we will collect personal information directly from you. This may be in person (for example, if you attend an event), on the telephone (for example, if you contact Melanoma Patients Australia on 1300 884 450 or if you answer a telephone-based research questionnaire), by mail (for example, if you complete research study documentation or a survey) or online (for example, if you enquire about, sign up for or use our Services, participate in an online survey, make a donation, register for an online learning program, sign up for an event online or set up an account with us online).

6.2 From others

We may also collect personal information from other third parties such as:

health professionals, other organisations holding your records, or your next of kin, for example, where you have consented, or are unable to provide us with your personal information directly (or other grounds permit or require us to collect such information);

or organisations or research partners with whom we conduct research or evaluations, if you are a participant in the relevant research or evaluation.

6.3 When you access our website

When you access our website, we or our third-party service providers may use “cookies”.

We may also use software (such as JavaScript), or similar technology. We may also gather your IP address as part of our business activities and to assist with any operational difficulties or support issues with our Services. This information does not identify you personally.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small data files stored in your device’s memory that do not, of themselves, identify individuals personally but do identify devices.

What cookies do we use and why?

Cookies help us to provide customised services and information. For example, to allow us to:

maintain the continuity of your browsing session (e.g. making a donation);
remember your details and preferences when you return;
use Google Analytics to collect information, such as demographics and interests, visits to our websites, length of visit and pages viewed; and
tailor our advertising through advertising networks on other websites.

We generally use cookies on our websites for the following purposes:

Where necessary: These cookies are necessary for the basic functions of the website, and the website will not work in its intended way without them. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.
Functionality: These cookies help to perform certain functionalities. For example, recognising a user that has visited the website before, or remembering any preferences previously selected, such as preferred language or location.
Analytics: These cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Performance: These cookies are used to understand and analyse the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for visitors.
Advertisement: These cookies are used to provide visitors with customised advertisements based on the pages they have visited before and analyse the effectiveness of the ad campaign.

How can you control your cookie preferences?

You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, and this will provide you with an opportunity to either accept or reject it in each instance. Please note that if you do this, it may affect some of the functions on our website.

Third party cookies

When you visit our website, you may receive cookies that are set by third parties. For example, you may receive a cookie set by Google. We do not control the setting of these third-party cookies, so we suggest you might wish to check the third-party website for more information about their use of cookies and how to manage them.

6.4 Social networking services

We use social networking services such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, LinkedIn and YouTube to engage interactively with you, our stakeholders and the broader community. Where you have connected or communicated with us using these services (or where we have communicated with you), we may collect personal information about you which is relevant to that engagement (such as your social networking name and the content of your comment or action). We will only collect this information for the purposes of facilitating our communications with you, providing customer support, telemarketing and internally evaluating the effectiveness of our communication strategies. We may also use social networking services to recruit consenting participants for research related surveys with other partnering institutions. In such cases, personal information collected may be shared with those institutions with the consent of participants.

We may also collect information about your preferences or interactions with our content on these platforms, such as whether you have viewed or engaged with our posts or campaigns, to help us better understand and reach our donor base.

The social networking services will also handle your personal information for its own purposes. These services have their own privacy policies. You can access the privacy policies for Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Twitter/X, LinkedIn and YouTube on their websites.

7. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We use your Personal Information for a range of purposes, including:

(a) providing you with our Services;

(b) improving our Services through quality-improvement activities;

(d) helping you to access the most appropriate information and tools associated with our websites;

(e) providing you with support if you need technical assistance;

(f) processing payments, including donations;

(g) communicating important service-related announcements, changes to our Services or policies, or password notifications;

(h) providing you with information any newsletters you have signed up to receive;

(i) answering enquiries and resolving complaints;

(j) complying with directions from authorities or legislative requirements;

(k) screening for or preventing potentially fraudulent, illegal or abusive activity; and

(l) storing your data so it is available for your future use of our Services.

We may also collect, hold, use and disclose Personal Information for purposes:

(a) which we explained at the time of collection; or

(b) which are required by law; or

(d) which are necessary for maintaining the reliability and security of infrastructure and services.

We only use or disclose your Personal Information for the above purposes, or for purposes that you consent to, or for other related purposes that you would reasonably anticipate.

To the extent you submit content to public areas of our websites (for example, on a public online forum), it will be available to the public and we may reuse or republish it. If you request that such content be removed, we will do our best to promptly remove it.

If you have any concerns about us using your Personal Information in any of these ways, please notify us immediately.

8. HOW DO WE STORE AND SECURE PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We store personal and health information in hardcopy and/or electronic form.

All personal information collected digitally by Melanoma Patients Australia is held on servers located in Australia. Melanoma Patients Australia retains effective control over any personal information held on those servers.

We take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

Some of the ways we do this include:

restricting access to personal information to authorised employees that need it and whose accounts are protected with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA);
ensuring that employees are subject to confidentiality agreements;
de-identifying personal information where possible;
performing regular security updates of servers and workstations to protect personal information from evolving threats;
secure storage of hardcopy information, which is only accessible by authorised people;
using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates for encrypting your credit card and debit card numbers – we do not store credit card information;
encrypting financial information on our servers and restricting access to this information to authorised Melanoma Patients Australia staff; and
backing up and archiving information using secure archiving services within Australia.

We destroy or permanently de-identify personal information that is no longer needed in a secure manner. (However, we will keep information for a longer period where necessary to comply with contractual, regulatory or legal requirements.)

The retention periods that apply to different categories of information are set out in Melanoma Patients Australia’s Data Retention Policy and Data Retention Schedule, which govern how long personal, sensitive and health information is retained before destruction or de-identification.

8.1 Accessing and correcting your Personal Information

You can ask Melanoma Patients Australia to correct or update Personal Information we hold about you at any time. We will need to verify your identity before making any corrections or changes to your Personal Information. We also have obligations to take reasonable steps to correct Personal Information we hold once we have been notified that it is inaccurate, out-of-date, incomplete or irrelevant or misleading for the purpose for which it is held.

If you would like:

(a) confirmation that we hold your Personal Information; or

(b) to access your Personal Information; or

you can request this by contacting [email protected].

We will respond to your request within a reasonable period and within any timeframe specified by the Privacy Legislation. You may make an urgent request to access or correct your Personal Information, which should include the reasons for the urgency.

We will allow you to access your Personal Information unless there is a sound reason not to, including where:

(a) giving access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others; or

(b) we reasonably consider that your request for access is frivolous or vexatious; or

If we refuse to give you access to your Personal Information, we will give you a notice setting out our reasons.

If you believe that Personal Information, we hold about you is incorrect or out of date, please contact us and we will take all reasonable steps to amend the Information in line with your request.

If the Personal Information has been collected on behalf of others, we may direct you to contact the relevant party to initiate your request.

9. NOTIFICATION OF A DATA BREACH

If we become aware of unauthorised access to or loss of your Personal Information, we will promptly:

(a) notify you;

(b) investigate the cause;

(d) tell you what steps we have taken to prevent a reoccurrence.

Unauthorised access to or unauthorised disclosure of Personal Information, or a loss of Personal Information, are handled in accordance with the relevant authority as follows: oaic.gov.au/privacy/notifiable-data-breaches.

10. HOW YOU CAN CONTACT US

Please contact us if you have any queries about the Personal Information that we hold about you or the way we handle it.

Our contact details are set out below:

(a) Call us on 1300 884 450;

(b) Email us at [email protected]; or

Attention: Privacy Officer

Melanoma Patients Australia

GPO Box 1921

Melbourne VIC 3001

11. COMPLAINTS

If you have a complaint about how we collect or handle your Personal Information, please contact us using the contact details in Clause 10 of this Privacy Policy. We treat any claims of privacy breaches seriously and will do our best to respond to your complaint within seven (7) days of receiving it.

If you are unhappy with our response, you can refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in Australia.

12. RESPONSIBILITIES

Melanoma Patients Australia’s Board is responsible for adopting and reviewing this Privacy Policy.

Melanoma Patients Australia’s CEO is responsible for development and implementation of this Privacy Policy, for monitoring changes in Privacy Legislation, and for advising on the need to review or revise this Policy as and when the need arises.

12.1 Updates to and availability of this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy may be reviewed and amended from time to time to reflect changes to our practices, policies, systems and legal obligations. Any changes to this Privacy Policy will take effect from the date of posting on our website.

A copy of this Privacy Policy is available for download from our website or by contacting the Privacy Officer as set out in Clause 10 of this Policy.

13. RELATED DOCUMENTS

Melanoma Patients Australia Data Retention Policy
Melanoma Patients Australia Cyber Security Policy
Melanoma Patients Australia Acceptable Use of AI Policy

Authorisation

Approval Date 28 April 2026