Privacy Community Housing

Any information that you provide to Evolve Housing is treated confidentially.

Collection and use of information

We will only collect information from clients that we need. If you are not sure why we are asking you for certain information, please discuss this with one of our staff.

Non-disclosure

Federal privacy laws prevent us from providing any information about you to any other individual or organisation.

Nothing learnt about you, including the fact that you are a client of Evolve Housing, will be passed on to anyone outside our staff team without your written approval. Individuals requesting information about you or your household members, will be informed of our policy and no information will be provided.

Consenting to disclosure

We are more than pleased to deal with someone who is acting on your behalf, but this can only be done with your written approval (or if you are present at the time of any discussions). A Disclosure Consent form must be signed by you and this form is available from our office. (If you are an applicant for housing, simply complete the Disclosure section in our application form).

Note: You must complete a Disclosure Consent form even if an individual or organisation has previously made representations on your behalf.

Security of information

Information held about clients is maintained securely in our office. When the information held about you is no longer considered relevant, it is destroyed.

Confidentiality in our staff team

All of our staff are aware of privacy laws and strictly uphold our policies and internal practices concerning your confidentiality.

Confidentiality cannot be maintained by one worker, but will be observed within the staff team. For example, if you provide information to one staff member, we will not guarantee that this will not be shared with other staff.

Often, we need to share this information amongst staff to help us make better and fairer decisions about your tenancy or housing application.

Access to information

You will have access to any file or written record about you, and may request access to this information.

We will only deny a request for information in exceptional circumstances. This may include:

• the information would breach the privacy of others;
• providing the information would be illegal;
• providing the information could affect the health and safety of others.

Exclusions to these policies

Sometimes, we can be legally required to provide information on any applicant or tenant. This may include police or Centrelink investigations, Court orders and subpoenas. In these cases, we have no alternative but to supply the information we have.

Wherever we are able to, we will inform you of what information has been supplied.

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