Privacy Policy

Personal Information is information or an opinion that identifies an individual. Examples of Personal Information we collect include names, addresses, email addresses, documents, CVs, registration papers, references, phone, and facsimile numbers.

This Personal Information is obtained in many ways including via email, website enquiries, and phone conversations.

We collect your Personal Information for the primary purpose of providing our services to you. We may also use your Personal Information for secondary purposes closely related to the primary purpose.

You may unsubscribe from our mailing/marketing lists at any time by contacting us in writing.

When we collect your personal information:

• we check that it is reasonably necessary for our functions or activities as an employment agency and consulting firm
• we record and hold your information in our Information Record System. Some information may be disclosed to overseas recipients.
• we retrieve your information when we need to use or disclose it for our functions and activities. At that time, we check that it is current, complete, accurate and relevant. This will sometimes mean that we have to cross check the information that we collect from you with third parties once again – especially if some time has passed since we last checked.
• You have the right at any time to request a copy of all information we hold on your file or to request that all your information is deleted

We destroy or de-identify your personal information when it is no longer needed for any purpose for which it may be used or disclosed provided that it is lawful for us to do so. We do not destroy or de-identify information that is contained in a Commonwealth Record.

Sensitive information is defined in the Privacy Act to include information or opinion about such things as an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious or philosophical beliefs, membership of a trade union or other professional body, criminal record or health information.

Sensitive information will be stored and used by us only:

• For the primary purpose for which it was obtained
• For a secondary purpose that is directly related to the primary purpose
• With your consent
• Where required or authorised by law.

Where reasonable and practicable to do so, we will collect your Personal Information only from you. However, in some circumstances, we may be provided with information by third parties. In such a case we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are made aware of the information provided to us by the third party.

Your Personal Information may be disclosed in a number of circumstances including the following:

• Third parties where you consent to the use or disclosure; and
• Where required or authorised by law.

Your Personal Information is stored in a manner that reasonably protects it from misuse and loss and from unauthorized access, modification or disclosure.

When your Personal Information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was obtained, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify your Personal Information. However, most of the Personal Information will be stored in client files which will be kept by us for a minimum of 7 years.

You may access the Personal Information we hold about you and to review, update, delete and/or correct it, subject to certain exceptions. If you wish to access your Personal Information, please contact us in writing or fill out the website form at https://www.alectoaustralia.com/personal-information-request/

We endeavour to respond to access requests within 30 days. Alecto Consulting Pty Ltd will not charge any fee for your access request.

In order to protect your Personal Information, we may require identification from you before releasing the requested information.

It is an important to us that your Personal Information is up to date. We will  take reasonable steps to make sure that your Personal Information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you find that the information we have is not up to date or is inaccurate, please advise us as soon as practicable so we can update our records and ensure we can continue to provide quality services to you.

Kinds of information that we collect and hold

Personal information that we collect and hold is information that is reasonably necessary for the proper performance of our functions and activities as an employment agency and consulting firm and is likely to differ depending on whether you are:

• a Workseeker;
• a Client;
• a Referee.

For Workseekers

The type of information that we typically collect and hold about Workseekers is information that is necessary to assess amenability to work offers and work availability; suitability for placements; to assist you in emigrating to Australia and qualifying to work as a doctor here; or to manage the performance in work obtained through us and includes, but is not limited to:

• A current and up-to-date curriculum vitae
• Proof of qualifications
• Application forms to various bodies and agencies (eg., AMC, AHPRA, RACGP, Medicare)
• Visa information
• Passport information
• Reference checks (collected via third parties, nominated by you)
• Signed contracts or letters of offer

For Clients

The type of information that we typically collect and hold about Clients is information that is necessary to help us manage the presentation and delivery of our services and includes, but is not limited to:

• Business names and contacts of employees or business owners who are direct contact points
• We collect information such as names, job titles and contact numbers for clients, as well as noting if and when they leave a company
• We do not solicit personal information, or keep personal information
• We do, however, keep all phone numbers and email addresses provided to us unless and until instructed to remove them from our database
• When staff leave a client company, we hide but do not delete, the business information we had for them (name, role, contact number, email address, etc)

For Referees

The type of information that we typically collect and hold about Referees is information that is necessary to help to make determinations about the suitability of one of our Workseekers for particular jobs or particular types of work and includes but is not limited to:

• Your name, contact details, and your relationship to the work seeker
• The substance of what you said as part of providing a reference, generally in the form of notes on the reference conversation you had with our consultants

The following sections are also relevant to our use and disclosure of your personal information:

• Our Policy on Direct Marketing
• Overseas Disclosures

1. For Workseekers

Information that we collect, hold, use and disclose about Workseekers is typically used for:

• work placement operations;
• recruitment functions;
• statistical purposes and statutory compliance requirements;
• communication with various bodies, including Medicare, AHPRA, AMC, and the RACGP, on behalf of workseekers (after a contract is agreed);
• assisting clients in sponsoring workseekers for visas (after successful placement);
• communicating with you, before, after and during the placement process;

For Clients

Personal information that we collect, hold, use and disclose about Clients is typically used for:

• client and business relationship management;
• recruitment functions;
• consulting functions;
• marketing our services to you;
• statistical purposes and statutory compliance requirements;

For Referees

Personal information that we collect, hold, use and disclose about Referees is typically used for:

• to confirm identity and authority to provide references;
• Workseeker suitability assessment;
• recruitment functions;

• Your personal information such as names and email addresses may be used for direct marketing
• We do not provide your information to any third parties for marketing purposes
• You may opt out of marketing emails at any time by electing to unsubscribe
• We comply with anti-spam legislation, and you may opt to discontinue receiving marketing materials from us at any time

Photos & Images

We will not request that you supply photographs, scan photo ID, or capture and retain video image data of you in cases where simply sighting photographs or proof of identity documents would be sufficient in the circumstances.

We do collect scans of passports to provide them as required to government agencies in order that you may work as a doctor in Australia. Passports are held on our Information Record System until such time as you begin work, at which time they are deleted from our system as they are no longer required.

Depending on the nature of your job placement in Australia, we may also request a photo of you, which will be provided to third parties only with your specific and explicit permission.

Electronic Transactions

Sometimes, we collect personal information that individuals choose to give us via online forms or by email, for example when individuals:

• ask to be on an email list such as a job notification list;
• register as a site user to access facilities on our site such as a job notification board;
• make a written online enquiry or email us through our website;
• submit a resume by email or through our website;
• consent to having their information forwarded to us by a third party
• submit a resume or job application to us via SEEK;
• submit a resume or job application to us via another job posting website;

It is important that you understand that there are risks associated with use of the Internet and you should take all appropriate steps to protect your personal information. It might help you to look at the OAIC’s resource on Internet Communications and other Technologies.

You can contact us by land line telephone or post if you have concerns about making contact via the Internet.

• Social networks and web searches: We run Google searches on all new candidates, and store images of the first two pages of Google on our VPS.
• Browsing: We collect anonymised data about your visit to our website. The information is neither personalised nor identifiable.
• Cookies: Cookies are text files which are stored locally on your computer, and are accessible by websites on the domain which first created them. They are not personally identifiable and are destroyed after 14 days.
• Emails: We save all emails to, from, and about you we send or receive on our email server. Any email from or to an email address we have saved to your database file will also be synced to the database.
• Calls and message logs: We do not record calls, however, we do frequently log the time and substance of calls in our database.
• Teleconferences and videoconferences: We do not record tele- or videoconferences, however, we do frequently log the time and substance of them in our database.
• Database: Our database is password-protected, and accessed and accessible only by Alecto employees regardless of their geographic location
• Mobile Access: Our email systems are accessed and accessible by Alecto from laptops which are password protected, and from mobile phones which are also password protected. We may also access the database from our laptops in or out of the office.

Our Information Record System

• Information is stored on our database, email systems, local hard-drives, and shared (staff access only) hard-drives;
• Some information, such as application forms or correspondence, may be held temporarily as a hard-copy, until it has been entered into our digital storage, at which point it will be shredded;
• Our email systems are accessible and accessed by staff mobile phones;
• The database, email system, and shared hard-drives are accessible and accessed by laptops, sometimes out of the office;
• Our database system and shared hard-drives, are hosted on their own server in Melbourne, and are restricted to password access;

Information Security

We are committed to protecting your privacy, and for that reason have implemented a number of procedures to ensure it, including:

• Staff training: All staff are trained in the importance of respecting your privacy, including when to disclose information, how to password-protect devices, when to delete information, and so on.
• Just-in-time collection policies: We do not collect information until it becomes necessary to do so.
• Password protection: All devices, including laptops and mobile phones, which may access your data are password-protected.
• Policy on timely culling: We delete high priority personal information such as passport scans as soon as we no longer have a need for it.
• Culling procedures including shredding and secure disposal etc: All personally identifiable documents are disposed of via shredding when they are no longer necessary. We do not discard personally identifiable information except by shredding or otherwise destroying the document.

We may disclose your personal information for any of the purposes for which it is primarily held or for a lawful related purpose.

We may disclose your personal information where we are under a legal duty to do so.

Cross-Border Disclosures

Some of your personal information is likely to be disclosed to overseas recipients. We cannot guarantee that any recipient of your personal information will protect it to the standard to which it ought to be protected. The costs and difficulties of enforcement of privacy rights in foreign jurisdictions and the impracticability of attempting to enforce such rights in some jurisdictions will mean that in some instances, we will need to seek your consent to disclosure.

• If you find that personal information that we hold about you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, you can ask us to correct it by contacting us.
• We will take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to correct that information to ensure that, having regard to the purpose for which it is held, the information is accurate, up to date, complete, relevant and not misleading. We will require you to verify your identity when requesting we correct our data.
• If we have disclosed personal information about you that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, you can ask us to notify the third parties to whom we made the disclosure and we will take such steps (if any) as are reasonable in the circumstances to give that notification unless it is impracticable or unlawful to do so.
• We endeavour to respond to requests for correction within 30 days.

You have a right to complain about our handling of your personal information if you believe that we have interfered with your privacy.

Complaints procedure

If you are making a complaint about our handling of your personal information, it should first be made to us in writing.

You can make complaints about our handling of your personal information to our Privacy Co-ordinator, whose contact details are:

Martina Stanley

[email protected]

You can also make complaints to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Complaints may also be made to RCSA, the industry association of which we are a member.

RCSA administers a Code of Conduct for the professional and ethical conduct of its members.

The RCSA Code is supported by rules for the resolution of disputes involving members.

NOTE: The Association Code and Dispute Resolution Rules do NOT constitute a recognised external dispute resolution scheme for the purposes of the APPs; but are primarily designed to regulate the good conduct of the Associations members.

When we receive your complaint:

• We will take steps to confirm the authenticity of the complaint and the contact details provided to us to ensure that we are responding to you or to a person whom you have authorised to receive information about your complaint;
• Upon confirmation we will write to you to acknowledge receipt and to confirm that we are handling your complaint in accordance with our policy.
• We may ask for clarification of certain aspects of the complaint and for further detail;
• We will consider the complaint and may make inquiries of people who can assist us to established what has happened and why;
• We will require a reasonable time (usually 30 days) to respond;
• If the complaint can be resolved by procedures for access and correction we will suggest these to you as possible solutions;
• If we believe that your complaint may be capable of some other solution we will suggest that solution to you, on a confidential and without prejudice basis in our response;

If the complaint cannot be resolved by means that we propose in our response, we will suggest that you take your complaint to any recognised external dispute resolution scheme to which we belong or to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

This Policy may change from time to time and is available on our website.

If you have any queries about our Privacy Policy please contact us at:

Address: Suite 401, 7 Jeffcott Street, West Melbourne, Victoria 3003

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 1800 604 332