Privacy Policy

UFS Healthcare Ltd. (UFS) is committed to protecting your privacy when you interact with us. This includes any interactions on our website, in store and includes the privacy of health records.

UFS is also committed to protecting your information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.


The purpose of this policy is to explain:

  • What kinds of personal information we collect and store;
  • How we collect and store the personal information;
  • Why we collect personal information and in what circumstances we will disclose the information;
  • How you can access details of the personal information we hold and if necessary correct the personal information;
  • How to contact us to discuss any breach of this policy or the use of your personal information; and
  • The circumstances when we would disclose your personal information to organizations overseas.

Collection and Use of Personal Information

UFS collects information about you in the following circumstances:

  • Where we are providing a product or service that you have requested. For example, if you have your prescription filled with us ;
  • Where the law requires us to collect your personal information. For example, personal details including your name and current residential address, details of your prescriptions and when supplying medicines containing pseudoephedrine.
  • To ensure that products you are purchasing are appropriate for your needs;
  • To ensure that any product provided to you will not have any impact with other drugs, allergies or health issues;
  • Where you have applied for a position with us, are employed by us or are completing work experience or other related work with us;
  • Where you have provided the information to us through correspondence either written, verbal or electronic. For example, if you have any questions about our services;
  • Where we would like to improve our service to you, for example through the use and collection of data for statistical purposes or by the use of electronic tools like cookies;
  • As part of our customer database. For example if you are a UFS member; and
  • For any other purpose related to any of the above.

Generally speaking there are two types of information we collect:

  • Information that you specifically give to us. This includes, but is not limited to, a patient’s name, address, date of birth, government identifiers (for example; Medicare, Department of Veteran Affairs details or Centrelink details), medication history, family identities, contact telephone numbers, purchasing history (and where relevant, credit information) ; and
  • Other information obtained from your use of our products and services, including our website.

While in some circumstances you may not need to provide us with personal information, or you may use a pseudonym to interact with us, there are many circumstances when dealing with us that you must provide your personal information to us. For example, we are unable to process any prescriptions without the provision of your personal details, including your name and address and in some circumstances your Medicare number.

We will endeavor to ensure that any personal information obtained is complete, accurate, up to date and relevant.

We may also ask for your permission to provide you with information regarding upcoming promotions, specials or events. If you do not wish to receive this material you will need to contact us either in store or by email or telephone (details below) and our staff will remove you from our mailing list.


Electronic Data we Collect

UFS automatically collects information to track user numbers and frequency of visitors to our website.

We use this information to help us identify what our users want from our online services and to help us identify what is unnecessary on our site. This data is predominantly collected using cookies. Most information is effectively anonymous, however, if you do not want this type of information recorded most personal browsers give you the option to disable cookies.


Storage of Personal Information

Information collected by us is stored electronically on secured servers. Your health information is only stored at the site where it was collected. These systems are backed up daily.


Disclosure of Personal Information

We do not sell personal information to third parties.

We may disclose personal information to our staff and to third parties involved in the provision of your health care services. Some of the third parties we will disclose your personal information to include; medical practitioners or allied health practitioners, hospitals and police or other government agencies (where required by law).

We may also disclose personal information to trusted third parties who we engage to process your personal information for us.

Personal information may also be disclosed to protect our legal rights, or in circumstances where the information relates to actual or threatened harm, threat to life, health or safety or in circumstances where we have good faith belief that such action is necessary to;

  • conform to the requirements of law or comply with government orders, court orders, or any legal process served on us; or
  • to protect and defend our property or other rights, the users of our website or the public; or
  • in circumstances where our staff have knowledge of criminal activity internally within the pharmacy;
  • where collection and disclosure is authorised or required by law (in such circumstances we will only disclose the minimum personal information required by such law);
  • where collection and disclosure is required for the management or funding of a health service, or statistical information required for research purposes. This includes the disclosure of information to the Department of Human Services for payment of Pharmaceutical Benefits; or
  • disclosure of health information to a responsible person (by definition of 6AA of the Privacy Amendment 2012) in the event that a person is legally or physically incapable of consent.

We may disclose personal information to other companies and organisations if we are concerned that there is a risk of fraud.

We will not disclose information to organisations overseas unless we are required to disclose the information by law.


Accessing your Personal Information

You have a right to request access to personal information held by UFS about you. You also have the right to request correction of any personal information that we hold. To seek access or corrections of your personal information please contact us as follows:

By email: privacy@ufs.com.au

By telephone: (03) 5327 7777

By mail: Privacy Officer, UFS Healthcare Ltd., 206 Armstrong Street North, Ballarat, 3350


Use of Your Personal Information to Contact You

We will never intentionally send you unwanted electronic commercial material, however, we will send you information from time to time that we feel may be of interest to you. If you do not wish to receive such information, you can advise us either instore or by using the contact details below.

We may also send you correspondence from time to time regarding a service you have used or a product you have purchased.


Protection of Information We Collect

We follow reasonable technical and management practices to help protect the confidentiality, security and integrity of data stored on our system. While no computer system is completely secure, we believe the measures implemented by us reduce the likelihood of security problems to a level appropriate to the type of data involved. Our servers follow Microsoft best practices with Antivirus and SSL encryption for all external connectivity, and use encryption technology that works with the most commonly used internet browsers.

We use secure web services to collect your information and we store certain kinds of data in encrypted form.

We encourage you to be vigilant about the protection of your own information when using digital services, such as social media. While we will endeavor to ensure that any relationships we have with third parties include an appropriate level of protection for your privacy, we will be limited in our ability to control any electronic platform operated by a third party, this includes but is not limited to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook


Third Party Websites

Our website may contain links to third party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these websites even if you access those sites using links from us. Your use of these third party websites is entirely at your own risk and we recommend that you check the privacy and security policy of each website you visit. Clicking on a third party link will take you to a third party’s website. We make no representation or warranty as to the effectiveness, quality, legitimacy or data protections of any third party website.


Privacy Complaints and Enquiries

We want to ensure that we keep your personal information confidential and will do our best to do this, however, if you do have any questions or complaints regarding our use, collection or storage of your personal information, please feel free to contact us to discuss these issues:

By email: privacy@ufs.com.au

By mail: Privacy Officer, UFS Healthcare Ltd., 206 Armstrong Street North, Ballarat, 3350

We will endeavor to respond to your query, comment or complaint within 30 days of receipt of your correspondence.

If you are unhappy with our response or if we do not provide a response within 30 days you can make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (“OAIC”).

The OAIC can be contacted by telephone on 1300 363 992 or at www.oaic.gov.au