Thornleigh Dental Clinic
Thornleigh Dental Care (“we”, “our”, “us”) is committed to protecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store and disclose personal information, including health information, and how you can access or correct the information we hold about you.
This policy is intended to reflect the obligations that apply to health service providers under Australian privacy law and related NSW health privacy guidance. The OAIC’s health privacy guidance says a privacy policy should explain the personal information collected and held, how patients can access and correct information and how complaints are handled.
We may collect personal information that is necessary to provide dental services, manage our practice and respond to your enquiries.
The types of information we may collect include:
We may collect this information when you:
As a health service provider, we may need to collect health information directly from you where practical, and the OAIC notes that health service providers commonly handle information such as patient contact details, clinical notes, reports, referrals, test results and similar records.
We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information to:
We may also use your information for other purposes you have consented to or that are otherwise permitted or required by law.
Under the Privacy Act and OAIC guidance, health information may be used or disclosed for the primary purpose for which it was collected, and in some secondary purpose circumstances allowed by law.
We generally collect personal information directly from you. This may happen through:
In some cases, we may collect information from someone else where it is reasonable or necessary to do so, for example from a parent or guardian, another treating practitioner, or where you have authorised us to do so.
When you use our website, we may collect information you voluntarily submit through our forms, including appointment enquiry details and newsletter subscription details.
Like many websites, we may also collect technical information such as:
We may use cookies, analytics tools or similar technologies to help operate our website, improve performance and understand how visitors use it. Where required, we will take reasonable steps to manage these tools in line with applicable privacy requirements.
We may disclose your personal information to:
We will only disclose your personal information where it is necessary for the purposes of your care, our business operations, or as otherwise permitted by law.
Some of the service providers we use may store or process information outside Australia, depending on the systems they use. If we do disclose personal information overseas, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the information is handled in a way that is consistent with applicable privacy obligations.
The OAIC’s health privacy guidance says a privacy policy should tell patients whether overseas disclosures are likely and, if so, where the information may be sent.
We take reasonable steps to protect the personal information we hold from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
These steps may include:
No method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is completely secure. However, we work to maintain reasonable and appropriate safeguards for the information we hold.
If a data breach occurs involving personal information and we are required to do so under law, we will notify affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner where the breach is likely to result in serious harm.
The OAIC states that under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, organisations covered by the Privacy Act must notify affected individuals and the OAIC when a data breach is likely to result in serious harm.
You may request access to the personal information we hold about you. We will respond to your request within a reasonable time and in accordance with applicable law.
In some circumstances, we may need to refuse access or provide limited access, for example where the law permits or requires us to do so. If that happens, we will explain the reason and the options available to you.
If you believe the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, irrelevant or misleading, you may ask us to correct it.
A patient can ask a health service provider to correct health information held about them, and that the privacy policy and privacy notice should explain how such requests can be made.
If you have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first so we can try to resolve the issue.
Please provide as much detail as possible about your concern. We will investigate your complaint and respond within a reasonable timeframe.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may be able to raise your complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or another relevant regulator.
We keep personal and health information for as long as required to provide care, meet record-keeping obligations and comply with legal and professional requirements. When information is no longer needed, we take reasonable steps to securely destroy or de-identify it where appropriate and lawful to do so.
Our website may contain links to third-party websites or social media pages. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those external sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party websites you visit.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, technology, legal obligations or operational practices. The latest version will be published on our website.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the way we handle your personal information, please contact us.
Thornleigh Dental Care
Address: 19 Bellevue Street, Thornleigh NSW 2120
Email: info@thornleigh-dentist.com.au
2026@Thornleigh Dental Care. All rights reserved
Member of Australian Dental Association
