Information Management and Privacy Policy

The Australian Registry of Wildlife Health was initiated in 1985 to improve access to wildlife health information.  Dr. Bill Hartley began operating the Registry using a highly effective log book and card file system.  The computerisation of the pathology archival system, the addition of an expertise and resource registry, and the changed provisions to Australia’s Privacy Act have necessitated the development of an information management and privacy policy. More recently, the Registry has become involved in a collaboration with the Australian Biosecurity Intelligence Network (ABIN). ABIN has allowed us to bring our traditional Registry databse into the online environment. Due to the nature of the world wide web, we have again evolved the information management and privacy policy to reflect the management and handling of information in this environment. If you have any concerns regarding these policies, please contact us.

Aims

Through the WildHealth Project we aim to provide the infrastructure to facilitate effective online collaboration to support research, education and surveillance, to better protect biodiversity, agriculture, and human health. 

Project Governance

The WildHealth Project will be supported by a Reference Group formed by a representative group of stakeholders to guide project activities and key decisions.  Draft Terms of Reference for this group are available upon request.

The WildHealth Project Manager will provide quarterly project reports and plans, and annual reports to the Reference Group and to the Biosecurity Projects Manager within the Australian Biosecurity Intelligence Network (ABIN).  The project will be over sighted by the ABIN Board and a representative of the Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation, Science and Research.

Membership

Invitations to register for access to WildHealth will be offered to Australian and New Zealand residents who are Members of the Wildlife Disease Association Australasia (WDA-A) and the Australian Society for Veterinary Pathology (ASVP). Additional commonwealth and state government personnel, and individuals keen to contribute wildlife health data will be invited to participate based on approval by the ABIN Biosecurity Projects Manager.

Security:

ABIN will be hosting WildHealth and other Biosecurity applications in a secure environment.  This environment will be formally accredited and certified to host applications with a broad range of security requirements, from open, public systems all the way up to RESTRICTED for highly sensitive systems. The degree of security that surrounds an application will be determined through extensive consultation with data owners, community stakeholders and appropriate Biosecurity peak bodies.

Policy: 

• Whenever possible data and digital assets should be shared freely among the wildlife health and biosecurity communities within the secure environment provided by ABIN
• Contributors have the ability to ascribe varied levels of access control or confidentiality to their materials
• When confidentiality settings are ascribed to data or digital assets, the participants agree to respect and uphold that level of security
• Cases that are not marked confidential may be included within monthly and quarterly case summaries to be distributed to stakeholders.
• Case material can be logged within ABIN WildHealth anonymously by contacting the ARWH
• Contributors retain the intellectual property, or copyright, to the information that they submit, but they provide ABIN and the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health (ARWH) with a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use the data (as defined by the level of confidentiality selected)
• Participants agree to comply with relevant copyright protection legislation
• This Information and Privacy Policy falls under the auspices of the ABIN IP Policy and other ABIN information management documents developed over time
• ABIN infrastructure is hosted by CSIRO and is thus considered part of commonwealth government.  Thus the content of ABIN may be subject to freedom of information requests.
• At present, the contribution of data within WildHealth does not diminish your responsibility to notify your state Chief Veterinary Officer of any suspicion that you might have regarding the possible presence of an emerging or notifiable disease.  If you have any suspicions about the potential presence of an emerging or notifiable disease, contact the Emergency Animal Disease Watch  Hotline immediately on 1800 675 888.
• Ensure that all cases are classified as confidential if there is any suspicion of the presence of a notifiable disease, emerging disease, or trade-sensitive disease. If you have any questions regarding whether a disease should be classified as confidential, please contact your state agriculture department veterinary laboratory or the Emergency Animal Disease Watch Hotline 1800 675 888.
• Criteria for diseases or disease incidents that should be reported to the Chief Veterinary Officer and lists of Notifiable Diseases are available via :

- Commonwealth list of notifiable animal diseases:  http://www.daff.gov.au/animal-plant-health/pests-diseases-weeds/animal/notifiable

- State and territory lists of notifiable animal diseases: http://www.daff.gov.au/animal-plant-health/pests-diseases-weeds/animal/state-notifiable

• If in our efforts to moderate the WildHealth site, if we identify materials that should be reported to the Chief Veterinary Officer, we will mark the material as confidential to limit access by other WildHealth members, and then we will attempt to contact the submitter to clarify the case content.  If the submitter can not be contacted, the Chief Veterinary Officer, or their delegate, from the state of origin of the material will be notified.
• Information and materials that are marked as confidential will be viewable by the Registrar of the ARWH.  In the event of a notifiable or emerging disease, or upon the request of the submitting institution, this information may be made available to the state chief veterinary officer. Every reasonable attempt will be made to contact the submitting institution prior to the transfer of information to the state chief veterinary officer.
• Within the ARWH database in WildHealth, groups of users may work together to form an Institution and moderate data flow and access to a specific set of case contributions.  The Director or Dean of the lead agency within this user group will provide a signed form listing the individuals who are allowed to access the data within their Institution.  This list of users will contain the name, contact email address and role/access (administrator, pathologists, data entry, modifier, read-only) of each participant.  It is the responsibility of the lead agent to notify the Registry of any changes to their user group.  The Registry will institute these changes as soon as possible, and certainly within 5 business days from notification.
• When new collections of data are established within WildHealth that lie outside of the Registry database, the moderator of that collection will include in the collection definition a description of the access rights and any additional levels of governance relating to that collection.
• WildHealth should support membership in existing wildlife and pathology organizations
• WildHealth should be easy to access, and the delivery technology should run smoothly
• A high level of professional behavior is expected from all participants
• The identities and personal contact details of members of the public (who might submit materials, images or data for investigation) must not, without their consent, be revealed to anyone who is not directly involved in that investigation. 
• Academic supervisors are responsible for the behavior of their students within the ABIN environment
• Participants are not to undertake non-research activities (telemarketing, list building) through participation in ABIN.
• Participants will be asked to complete an end-user license agreement regarding these terms and conditions prior to receiving their password to enter ABIN.
• Breaches in the terms of this policy and the end-user license agreement will be referred to the WildHealth Project Reference Group to allow communication with the parties concerned and for their consideration regarding the necessity and suitability of any further action.
• This policy will be subject to review and approval by the WildHealth Project Reference Group, upon its inception, annually, and when requested by stakeholders.

Privacy of personal details: 

In all of its endeavors, ABIN and the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health (ARWH) will not collect and maintain personal information unless that information has been voluntarily provided.  Unless specifically authorised by the individual, contact and personal information will not be provided to other private or government agencies.  Contact and personal information will not be provided to commercial or non-commercial marketing groups. 

Personal information within ABIN’s WildHealth project will most likely be provided voluntarily through the following activities:

• user registration
• participation within the ABIN Directory
• when divulged by the individual as they participate within the WildHealth community space
• as they make requests for information
• associated with case material submitted for examination or archiving.   

Persons may request to view the case files that they have submitted since 1998, and/or their personal information within ABIN’s WildHealth registration and systems. This information will be provided by return post within 5 business days. At any time, case materials or registration database details and directory details may be changed by the submitter.

Personal information emanating from requests for information will only be used to respond to that request, unless the individual expressly asks that their details be somehow maintained in the Registry or within ABIN, or passed on to other individuals or agencies. 

Case material will only be made available to other agencies for the purpose of research, surveillance, disease control, animal management or education once the personal details of the member of the public who submitted the material have been removed.  If further information is required, or if direct contact with the submitting individual is requested, this contact will first be made by the Registry to the institution that contributed the case information to ABIN WildHealth. 

Individual and organisations have the opportunity to determine how their information within this Registry will be disseminated.  Individuals and organisations who have agreed to have their contact details included within a directory to be distributed to stakeholders may have their contact information distributed to other agencies and individuals.   Individuals and organisations that do not choose to have their contact details included within the directory will only be contacted by Registry personnel.  Exceptions to this arrangement may include instances where there is a serious threat to the individual’s own safety, a threat to public safety, or if disclosure is required by law.

The Registry will not collect or maintain information that is classified as sensitive in the provisions of the Federal Privacy Act.

Authorship and Acknowledgement: 

If users wish to release to the media or publish information emanating from WildHealth, the written permission of the institution that submitted the information will be required.   The appropriate acknowledgment in the publication will be negotiated on a case by case basis. If information is to be in a high-level aggregated fashion for published reports and it would not be feasible or reasonably expected that all submitters would be contacted, the report will acknowledge ABIN and the ARWH. 

Disclaimer

In all of its endeavors, the Australian Biosecurity Intelligence Network and Australian Registry of Wildlife Health  personnel attempt to ensure the validity, and accuracy of information contained within the various data sources.  THE INFORMATION AND MATERIALS PROVIDED FROM ABIN AND THE REGISTRY ARE PROVIDED WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS.

The Australian Registry of Wildlife Health may revise these terms, conditions and policies at any time by updating this document.   This policy is also likely to be modified as the activities of ABIN and the Registry are enhanced and modified.

If you have any concerns, questions or complaints regarding the way that information is managed through the ABIN WildHealth Project, we respectfully request that you contact us to let us know. 

Further information regarding information management within ABIN’s WildHealth is available upon request.