Rationale:
Protecting the personal and health information of staff and students is a serious moral, professional and legal responsibility that our school recognises and accepts.

Aims:
To collect, handle, use, store and disclose personal and health information of staff and students in a manner compliant with the Health Records Act 2001 and the Information Privacy Act 2000.

Implementation:

• All staff at Upper Plenty Primary School will be provided with and made aware of DE&T Privacy Bulletins and other information as they become available, and will made aware of, and reminded of their individual and our collective duty of care regarding Privacy as required.
• All information collected at our school (including enrolment, excursion and medical permission forms etc) will be subjected to the following principles.
  COLLECTING only information the school needs.
  INFORMING people why we need the information and how we will use it.
  DISCLOSING only the information that is necessary for the purpose of the service.
  ACCESSING – providing people with supervised access to their own records.
  SECURING information against unauthorised use or disclosure.
• All collected information at our school will be retained in either the fireproof safe (in the case of staff), or in storage in the office as appropriate, or either disposed of or transferred to the Public Record Office of Victoria after use consistent with the Public Record Office Standard (PROS) 01/01.
• All relevant information and records relating to students (eg: enrolment forms, consent forms, assessments, psychological reports, academic reports etc) will all be retained in storage in the office in accordance with D&ET guidelines.
• All electronic data will be maintained, stored and transmitted in accordance with DE&T policy requirements and expectations.
• All records will be maintained and kept up to date by office administration staff.
• All requests (including requests by staff) for information stored at school must be made to the principal or his/her delegate.
• Under no circumstances, will personal private information be disclosed to unauthorised people.
• Confidentiality will be maintained at all times.

Evaluation:
To be reviewed as required by developments in relevant legislation or DE&T requirements etc.
This policy was last ratified by School Council in.... June 2003