The Your Room website is maintained by the NSW Ministry of Health. This Privacy Policy applies to all the publicly accessible pages on the Your Room site located at
yourroom.health.nsw.gov.au. The NSW Ministry of Health does not have any responsibility for the privacy policies or practices of third party sites linked to the Your Room site.
Users of the Your Room site are entitled to expect that any information as a result of that use will be treated within the terms of the New South Wales government's privacy responsibilities and obligations. The New South Wales government's privacy practices are regulated by the New South Wales
Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1988 and Health Records and
Information Privacy Act 2002.
What information do we collect?
When you look at the pages on the Your Room site, our computers automatically record information that identifies, for each page accessed:
the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the machine which has accessed it;
your top-level domain name (for example .com, .gov, .edu, .au, .uk etc.);
the address of your server;
the date and time of your visit to the site;
the pages accessed and documents downloaded;
the previous site visited; and
the type of browser and operating system you have used.
Only sessional cookies are used from the Your Room site to collect information. This information is unable to be retained once the user session has ceased.
The YAS Virtual Assistant accessed via the Your Room site captures a record of all questions submitted to it by members of the public. Submission to the YAS Virtual Assistance of names or other identifying information is discouraged in the YAS Welcome Message. Questions submitted to the YAS Virtual Assistant are monitored and any identifying information detected is deleted immediately.
How do we use the information collected?
Information collected
by the YAS Virtual Assistant is used to update content in the
chatbot and on the website and to make the Virtual Assistant more responsive. The information collected during each visit is aggregated with similar logged information and published in reports in order for the NSW Ministry of Health to identify patterns of usage of the site. This will assist us in improving the Your Room site and the services it offers.
The NSW Ministry of Health will not disclose or publish information that identifies individual machines, or potentially identifies sub-groupings of addresses, without consent or otherwise in accordance with the New South Wales
Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1988.
What exceptions are there to this rule?
The NSW Ministry of Health will collect, use and disclose more extensive information than stated above in the following circumstances:
unauthorised attempts to access files which are not published NSW Ministry of Health pages
unauthorised tampering or interference with files published on the Your Room site
unauthorised attempts to index the contents of the Your Room site by other sites
attempts to intercept messages of other users of the Your Room site
communications which are defamatory, abusive, vilify individuals or groups or which give rise to a suspicion that an offence is being committed
attempts to otherwise compromise the security of the web server, breach the laws of the State of New South Wales or Commonwealth of Australia, or interfere with the enjoyment of the Your Room site by other users
The NSW Ministry of Health reserves the right to make disclosures to relevant authorities where the use of the Your Room site raises a suspicion that an offence is being, or has been, committed. In the event of an investigation, the NSW Ministry of Health will provide access to data to any law enforcement agency that may exercise a warrant to inspect our logs.
The webchat platform facility offered to users of this site is operated by St Vincent's Hospital Sydney Limited and use of the webchat platform is subject to the following terms and conditions of use and the privacy policy of St Vincent's Hospital Sydney Limited.
Is the information stored securely?
Yes. Information collected is stored in an appropriately secure format and held by the NSW Ministry of Health for archival purposes. When the information is no longer required for the purposes for which it was collected it is deleted.
What will we do with information provided in Feedback?
The NSW Ministry of Health provides a feedback facility on the Your Room site to allow users to provide input into the future development of the site and to comment on the provision of service by the NSW Ministry of Health and the Alcohol and Drug Information Service at St Vincent's Hospital.
The provision of personal details on feedback is optional. Users may provide personal details for the purpose of receiving a reply to their feedback. This information will only be used for the purpose for which it was provided. We will not add your email address or name to any mailing list. The NSW Ministry of Health may publish aggregated information about feedback on the site, to the extent that it does not identify or cannot be used to identify individual users.
Will this policy be updated over time?
Due to the developing nature of privacy principles for online communication, this policy may be modified or expanded in light of new developments or issues that may arise from time to time. The amended policy will be posted to this site and will operate from the time it is posted.
Privacy of patient information
NSW Health is committed to safeguarding the privacy of patient information, and has implemented measures to comply with its obligations under the
Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002.
More information regarding the privacy of patient can be found at
Patient Privacy on the NSW Health website.
If you wish to have access to your personal information submitted through the Your Room website, please contact us and we will respond promptly to your request. You can also request that information about you be corrected or deleted.
If you have any questions about the Your Room site or a request for access or amendment to information held about you, please contact:
Manager, Communications
Centre for Alcohol and Other Drugs
NSW Ministry of Health
Locked Mail Bag 2030
St Leonards NSW 1590
Phone 02 9391 9000
Fax 02 9391 9101
