Privacy and health information collection notice

This notice applies to patients, prospective patients, carers, authorised representatives, website visitors, and portal users who interact with Cipher Health. Health information is sensitive information under Australian privacy law, so we treat it with higher safeguards.

• Identity and contact details such as name, date of birth, email, phone number, address, Medicare details, IHI, and photo-ID details where needed.
• Health information such as symptoms, goals, medical history, medicines, allergies, pathology/ECG status, care preferences, and clinical notes.
• Operational information such as appointment, payment, pharmacy coordination, reminder, portal, file, and audit records.
• Technical information such as request metadata, security logs, rate-limit data, device/browser details, and bot-check results.

We collect information to assess suitability, triage requests, provide telehealth services, book appointments, maintain clinical records, coordinate prescriptions or pharmacy handoffs where clinically appropriate, process payments, send care communications, manage patient access/correction requests, secure the service, meet legal obligations, and improve safe operations.

You can choose not to provide information. If required clinical, identity, consent, or contact information is missing, Cipher Health may be unable to assess your request, book a consultation, provide care coordination, release records, or meet legal obligations.

We use and disclose information only for the purposes described in this notice, purposes you consent to, related purposes you would reasonably expect, or where required or authorised by law.

• Treating practitioners and authorised Cipher Health staff who need access for care, triage, booking, administration, billing, safety, or compliance.
• Approved pharmacies, pathology providers, payment processors, email/SMS providers, object-storage providers, and other vendors only where needed for the service and approved for the relevant data.
• Regulators, insurers, professional advisers, courts, or law-enforcement bodies where required or authorised by law.
• Emergency or urgent-care services where disclosure is reasonably necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to life, health, or safety.

We never sell personal information. We do not share personal information — identified, de-identified, or aggregated — with advertisers, sponsors, or data brokers, and we do not use it to build products or reports for them. With your permission, we use Google Analytics through Google Tag Manager to understand how visitors find and use our public website. It never runs in the patient portal, admin areas, or on pages that contain health information, and we never send your answers, health details, name or email to Google. You can decline or change your choice at any time using ‘Cookie preferences’. We carry no advertising trackers. If our practices were ever to change, this notice would be updated first and the change would apply only to information collected after that update.

We also note how you first reached our website as a general category only, such as ‘Google search’, ‘Google Ads’, ‘Email’ or ‘Direct’, using one small cookie on this website. If you start a consultation, that category is saved with your record so we can see how people find us. We do not record what you searched for, the ad you clicked or the page you came from, and the category is not shared with Google or anyone else.

Where they come from. When your practitioner requests blood tests through iMEDICAL, the laboratory’s report is sent to Cipher Health. You can also upload results from another laboratory. iMEDICAL and the laboratory that collects and tests your sample handle your information under their own privacy policies; iMEDICAL’s is at imedical.com.au/order/privacy.

What we do with them. We keep each report in your clinical record. Our own systems read the values from the report so that you and your practitioner can see each result over time. No outside artificial intelligence service is used, and your results are not sent anywhere else to be read.

What you see. Your results are your health information. They appear in your patient portal as soon as they arrive, before your practitioner has reviewed them, and are marked as not yet reviewed until then. Your practitioner will discuss them with you. Viewing your results needs you to be signed in; downloading a laboratory report asks for your password again, to protect it if someone else is using your device.

Accuracy and correction. The laboratory’s report is the record. If a value was read incorrectly, your practitioner corrects it and the original is kept in our audit trail. If a report is removed from your record, the values read from it are no longer shown. You can also ask us to correct your information (see section 7).

Who else sees them. Your treating practitioners and authorised Cipher Health staff who need them for your care, and otherwise only as set out in section 5. Laboratories may be required by law to notify public health authorities of certain infectious diseases; that notification is made by the laboratory.

Cipher Health uses technical and organisational safeguards such as role-based access, secure sessions, audit logging, rate limiting, private storage, and vendor review. We prefer Australian-region infrastructure for patient data. Some vendors may involve overseas support access or processing; those vendors must be reviewed and approved before real patient health information is sent to them.

You may request access to personal information we hold about you or ask us to correct information you believe is inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date. We may need to verify your identity and may need a practitioner to review changes to clinical records. Finalised clinical notes are corrected through an amendment trail rather than destructive editing.

Required service communications are used to manage your intake, appointments, care, prescription or pharmacy coordination, payments, safety notices, and service administration. They may be sent by email or SMS where you have provided the required general consent and a reachable contact channel.

Marketing is separate and optional. On a first-contact form, one unchecked choice lets you opt in to Cipher Health service marketing by both email and SMS. Declining or later withdrawing marketing does not affect your care or required service communications.

After opting in, you can manage email and SMS marketing independently in the patient portal. Reply STOP to marketing SMS or use the unsubscribe link in any marketing email. A valid withdrawal updates your profile immediately; withdrawing one marketing channel does not withdraw general care consent or the other marketing channel.

Our marketing emails are sent through Amazon Simple Email Service, which runs in Australia (Sydney). They record whether an email is opened and which links are clicked, so we can see which messages are useful. This is not shared with advertisers. You can stop marketing emails at any time with the unsubscribe link.

If a data breach is likely to result in serious harm, Cipher Health will follow the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, including notifying affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner where required.

For privacy questions, access requests, correction requests, or complaints, contact Cipher Health support. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

You can also review the service terms at /terms.