Collection notice for deaf and hard of hearing form

Collection Notice

The information on this form is collected by Victoria Legal Aid so that we can assess your eligibility for legal assistance and provide legal services to you. Information is treated confidentially in accordance with our professional obligations, our privacy policy and the Legal Aid Act 1978. If you do not provide the requested information we may not be able to provide a service to you. For more information about how Victoria Legal Aid handles your personal information please refer to our privacy policy.

VLA is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal and health information. This Collection Notice explains how VLA will collect, use and disclose the information we collect from you. We may make changes to this statement from time to time.

The information in this form is collected by Victoria Legal Aid so that we can assess your eligibility for legal assistance and provide legal services to you.

Information is treated confidentially in accordance with our professional obligations, our privacy policy and the Legal Aid Act 1978. If you do not provide the requested information we may not be able to provide a service to you. For more information about how Victoria Legal Aid handles your personal information please refer to our privacy policy.

We may need to share your information in some of the following circumstances to meet our legal and public sector obligations:

• to prevent the commission of a criminal offence;
• for statistical and research purposes with our contractual partners;
• to provide documents under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 1982;
• to pursue a complaint in accordance with VLA’s complaints procedures;
• to perform our legislative and administrative functions including compliance with orders and directions from courts, tribunals and regulators such as the independent Board-based Anti-corruption Commission, the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commission and the Victorian Ombudsman
• to investigate a child safety incident;
• where you have consented to the relevant disclosure.

Where information is shared, we will seek to share the minimum amount necessary.

We take all reasonable steps to ensure that the information we hold is accurate and complete and that it is protected from misuse, loss, unauthorised access or disclosure. We will only retain your personal information for as long as required for the purpose it was collected.

You can contact VLA to request access to your personal and health information or to ask VLA to correct an error. VLA will arrange this as soon as possible. If you have received a service from us you can request both hard copy or electronic copies of documents from your file. The first step is to contact the VLA staff member who has assisted you. This may be a VLA legal help officer, lawyer, mediator or an advocate from the Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA) service. You can also make an application under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic) by emailing foi@vla.vic.gov.au

If you have any privacy concerns you contact the Internal Legal Services (Internallegalservices@vla.vic.gov.au) team at VLA.