Bowel cancer, also known as colorectal cancer, can affect any part of the colon or rectum; it may also be referred to as colon cancer or rectal cancer, depending on where the cancer is located.
Bowel cancer screening is for people who do not already have bowel cancer, symptoms of bowel cancer, or any reason to have a high risk of bowel cancer.
Patient-centred care is healthcare that is respectful of, and responsive to, the preferences, needs and values of patients and consumers.
Bowel Cancer Australia provides essential support services uniquely designed for bowel cancer patients via our confidential Helpline with specialist telehealth support, as well as a national Peer-to-Peer Support Network and Buddy Program.
Bowel Cancer Australia funds research that has the potential to improve survival and/or help build a path toward a cure and integrates published research into our awareness, advocacy, and support strategies.
Bowel Cancer Australia relies upon donations and the support of hard working and enthusiastic fundraisers across the country to continue our life saving work. We raise funds to continue our life-saving work and inspire others to do the same, so everyone affected by bowel cancer can live their best life.
Bowel Cancer Australia (ABN: 98 095 158 633) (“us”, “our” or “we”) recognises the importance of privacy and wants you to understand how we collect, store, use and disclose personal information.
We are a non-government, not-for-profit organisation with a vision to have an everlasting impact on our health future – where no Australian dies from bowel cancer and all those diagnosed receive the support they need.
Bowel Cancer Australia is dedicated to championing what matters most to people impacted by bowel cancer and empowering everyone affected to live their best life.
We are committed to challenging perceptions, overcoming barriers, and creating meaningful change across the care continuum through advocacy, awareness, and integrated research to improve access to personalised treatments and patient-centred care.
By contacting us, using or interacting (or continuing to use or interact with) our Digital Channels (as defined below) or otherwise providing us with your personal information, you consent to your personal information being collected, stored, used and disclosed in accordance with this Policy and any other contractual or other arrangements that apply between us (if any).
Through your use of our Site or other Digital Services or products or services offered by our nominated third parties, you may be re-directed to non-Bowel Cancer Australia websites in which information you share to continue using those products or services offered by those third parties will be controlled under such third parties’ separate privacy policies.
We do not review or endorse non-Bowel Cancer Australia websites or their third party privacy policies and you will need to review and comply with the terms of use and privacy policies of those third parties if you wish to continue using their non-Bowel Cancer Australia websites or to continuing using or receiving their products or services.
We may modify or update this Privacy Policy (Policy) from time to time by publishing a modified or updated version of it on our website. We encourage you to check our website periodically to ensure that you are aware of our current privacy policy.
This Policy describes how we manage personal information that we collect from you. It describes the types of information we collect and hold and how we do so, how we store that information and use and disclose that information and how to access and correct information and make a privacy compliant.
The purpose of this Policy is to:
‘Personal information’ is defined in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) as information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable:
For the purposes of this Policy, a reference to personal information should be read as including sensitive information or health information, unless otherwise specified.
Certain information collected by us is ‘sensitive information’ as defined in the Privacy Act.
Sensitive information means the following type of information: racial or ethnic origin; political opinions; membership of a political association; religious beliefs or affiliations; philosophical beliefs; membership of a professional or trade association or trade union; sexual orientation or practices; genetic information; health information, biometric information to be used for the purpose of automated biometric verification or identification or biometric templates.
‘Health information’ is personal information that is also information or an opinion about the physical, mental or psychological health of an individual, a disability 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 in connection with the donation of an individual’s body parts, organs or body substances, or personal information that is genetic information about an individual that is predictive of the individual’s health.
We collect personal information from individuals who we are connected, or we interact with, or who help us provide, our operations, products and/or services or activities. These include directors, employees, job applicants, contractors, volunteers, persons with cancer and their next of kin, donors (including via a bequest), research study participants, recipients of support services, participants in advocacy campaigns, forum attendees, survey members, participants in education and training programs, health promotion projects or fundraising campaigns, health professionals, suppliers, users of our Digital Channels (such as our Site, social media pages and Applications).
The majority of personal information we collect is via a solicited request from us to either an individual or an agency, organisation or small business operator to provide personal information, or to provide a kind of information in which that personal information is included. A request for such information may not involve direct communication between us and you i.e. you sign up to receive our newsletter or when you sign up to our online health platform or community service or support network or when you purchase goods from our online store via our Digital Channels.
The kinds of personal information that we may collect and hold include:
We may also collect health information recorded as part of our Bowel Care Services Team, our online health platforms and personnel records.
Occasionally, we are provided with personal information which we have not requested or solicited i.e. mis-directed mail or email. When this occurs, we will use reasonable efforts to comply with our legal requirements regarding dealing with unsolicited personal information, such as destroying it appropriately.
We will only collect sensitive information about individuals in the following circumstances where:
Where practicable, individuals will have options to not identify themselves to us when dealing with us or use a pseudonym. You can choose to not provide us with some or all of your personal information. This may affect our ability to help service you fully as we would like or we may not be able to provide you will all or some of our services or products without us being able to identify you or without more complete personal information being disclosed.
We will, where reasonably practicable, collect personal information directly from you. This may be in person (for example, product purchases made online via our Digital Channels or attendance at an event), over the telephone (for example, making a donation, purchasing a BowelScreen Australia test kit, calling our peer-to-peer network or the Bowel Cancer Australia Helpline), or online via our Digital Channels (for example, signing up for an event online, if you participate in an online survey or sharing a personal bowel cancer story/experience or signing up to our online health and community platform/service).
Our Digital Channels include our website (currently located at bowelcanceraustralia.org) or any website owned or operated by us, including bowelcanceraustraliaadvocacy.org; bowelcanceraustraliaimpact.org; bowelcancerawarenessmonth.org; bowelcancerpodcast.org; bowelprep.au; bowelscreeningaustralia.org; cpd.bowelcanceraustralia.org; decembeard.org.au; nevertooyoung.org.au; redappleday.au; and shop.bowelcanceraustralia.org; (Sites) and any other digital channels owned or operated by us from time to time such as any mobile sites, applications (such as our mobile Bowel Cancer Application), widgets, and other interactive features such as our online health platform/community services (such as our patient-reported experience and outcomes bowel cancer platform) and social media platforms or channels such as YouTube, Facebook, X and Instagram.
By using our mobile Bowel Cancer Application, we may collect information from you, such as your profile, location and other relevant information, which is used to provide our Services. By providing us with this information, you are consenting to our collection and use of this information. While our application does not collect precise information about your location of your mobile device, however, when accessing the Pharmacy Finder functionality, Google Maps or similar service, it may require such information to locate your nearest pharmacy.
We may also obtain personal information from third parties such as contractors (including fundraising or direct marketing service providers or our Digital Channels service providers), list vendors, health professionals, social and community workers. If we collect personal information about you from a third party and it is unclear that you have consented to the disclosure of your personal information to us, we will take reasonable steps to contact you and ensure that you are aware of the circumstances surrounding the collection and purposes for which we collected your personal information.
Personal information held by us is generally stored in our computer systems controlled by or on behalf of us. These may be operated by us or by our service providers in connection with our activities. We endeavour to apply information security processes aimed at eliminating risks of unauthorised access to, and loss, misuse or wrongful alteration of, personal information.
We generally collect and use personal information if it is reasonably necessary to carry out our activities, including to provide our services. This includes (without limitation) when it is for, or directly related to, one or more of our following functions or activities (without limitation):
We may use Personal Information that is provided to us for the following purposes (without limitation):
We may use your personal information, including your name, contact, phone number, address and email address, to send you marketing and promotional information by post, email, via our Digital Channels or telephone, including SMS. Our direct marketing activities may include contacting you for ways you can support our activities, including becoming a regular donor or purchasing additional products via our Digital Channels. You may request an opt-out of direct marketing communications from us at any time. If you do not opt-out, we will assume you give us your ongoing consent to send similar information and communications in the future.
We may work with direct marketing third parties for the purposes of assisting us with our direct marketing activities and we may share your personal information to them for this purpose.
You can stop our ongoing collection of your personal information by our mobile application easily by uninstalling the application. You must use the standard uninstall processes as may be available as part of your mobile device or via the mobile application marketplace or network.
We are committed to safeguarding your personal information which we store and use. We will take reasonable steps to protect the personal information that we hold from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. This includes:
Yes. We will share some of your personal information with third parties in the ways that are described in this Policy. We may disclose your personal information:
Ensuring that the personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate, up-to-date and complete is important to us.
We may take steps to ascertain if the personal information we hold is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, and if we form that belief or if you notify us of any inaccuracy, out-of-date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading personal information, we will take steps to correct that information.
You have a right to request access to and correction of your personal information we hold. We may need to verify your identity before allowing you to access or correct any of your personal information. As such, we will take reasonable steps to allow you access (on your request) to the personal information we hold about you, and provide the opportunity for the information to be corrected or to include a statement indicating that the information is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. All requests to access or correct information held by us will managed by our nominated representative) and we will endeavour to respond to you as soon as possible in compliance with the Privacy Act (typically we respond to such a request within 30 days). If you would like to make a request to access or correct your personal information, you can email us at privacy@bowelcanceraustralia.org.
If for any reason (including as required by law) we cannot provide you with access to your personal information, or refuse your request to correct your personal information or include a statement with the information about its accuracy, we will give you a written notice setting out our reasons.
We use “cloud-based” service providers and data hosting facilities to assist us with providing our services and goods to you. As a result, your personal information may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside Australia, including but not limited to Canada, Japan and the United States of America.
Personal information may also be processed by staff or by other third parties operating outside Australia who work for us or for one of our fundraising providers, research partners or other affiliated Bowel Cancer Australia organisations. This includes the third party provider of our online patient-reported experience and outcomes health platform/services based in Canada. We will take all reasonable steps in the circumstances to ensure that any overseas third party service providers we engage comply with appropriate confidentiality and privacy obligations, including through contractual arrangements.
If your personal information is collected using a collection notice that references this Policy or you interact with us via our Digital Channels, you are taken to consent to the disclosure, transfer, storing or processing of your personal information outside of Australia to one of our contracted service providers.
When you access our Digital Channels, we may use software embedded in our Digital Channels (such as Javascript) and we may place small data files (or cookies) on your computer or other device to collect information about which pages you view and how you reach them, what you do when you visit a page, the length of time you remain on the page, and how we perform in providing content to you.
A cookie does not identify individuals personally, but it does identify computers. We may gather IP addresses as part of our business activities and to assist with any operational difficulties or support issues with our services. 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 reject or disable cookies or similar technologies, it may affect some of the functions on our Digital Channels.
In addition, our mobile applications may collect certain information automatically, such as the type of mobile device you use, your mobile devices unique device ID, the IP address of your mobile device, your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browsers you use, and information about the way you use the application.
We may use these technologies to help us to maintain the continuity of your browsing session (e.g. maintaining a shopping cart, remember your details and preferences when you return) or we may use software analytics tools (such as Google Analytics) to collect information such as demographics and interests, visits to our Digital Channels, length of visit and pages viewed in order to better understand our user interactions and tailor our activities. Our use of software analytics tools (such as Google Analytics) may also involve such software analytics transferring information to third parties where required by law, or where such third parties process on behalf of the software analytics entity. By using our Digital Channels, you consent to the processing of data about you by our software analytics entities and in the manner and purposes set out above.
“Non-Personal Information” means any information which does not identify a specific individual, such as:
We and our third party service providers may collect Non-Personal Information, including:
We may aggregate Personal Information so that the aggregated information does not personally identify you or anyone else, such as by using Personal Information to calculate the percentage of our customers who live in a particular area. In some instances, we may combine Non-Personal Information with Personal Information (such as combining your name with your geographical location). If we combine any Non-Personal Information with Personal Information, the combined information will be treated by us as Personal Information as long as it is combined.
You may have queries about our Policy or our management of your personal information or you may make a complaint to us if you consider that we have interfered with your privacy or otherwise breached our obligations under the Privacy Act in relation to the management of your personal information. Your privacy query or privacy complaint should be in writing, providing as much detail as possible.
The privacy query or complaint should be addressed to:
Chief Executive Officer Bowel Cancer Australia Level 2, 213 Miller Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060 or via email privacy@bowelcanceraustralia.org.
We will take reasonable steps to investigate any privacy complaint we receive, and we may contact you for more information about your complaint and to verify your identity. We will use reasonable endeavours to notify you of the outcome of our investigation within 30 days of complaint being received. If our response is found to be unacceptable to you, we may suggest alternative dispute resolution methods such as conciliation or arbitration, in order to resolve the matter.
If you are not satisfied with the outcome of our investigations, you can make a complaint directly to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. Further details about how to make a complaint are set out at https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints/lodge-a-privacy-complaint-with-us
This Policy may be reviewed from time to time to take account of new laws or technology, or changes to our functions, operations and practices or legal obligations. Any changes to this Policy will take effect from the date of posting on our primary Site. The current Policy is available on the Bowel Cancer Australia primary website.