Universities of the Third Age keep records that contain sensitive private information. Under Australian Commonwealth Government legislation it is necessary for all organizations that collect and keep such private information to have a policy on how such records will be dealt with to meet the provisions of the Act, and to issue a Policy Statement on how this will be done.

There are two basic reasons why U3A Castlemaine gathers and stores private information, some of which may be considered sensitive. The first reason is that a range of government departments and authorities require us to collect, record, and pass on certain information as a condition of our registration for various purposes, and of our funding. The second reason is that no organization can operate without a certain amount of information about its members, some of this information is essential to the administration and operation of the organization, and some of it is merely beneficial to hold, but not essential. In regard to this last category of “beneficial” data, its provision to the organization by members is optional. In respect to all of the private information held in the records of the organization, there are conditions affecting its use, and who, within the organization, may or should have access to that data, and to whom it may be passed.

With regard to the requirements of government, we are obliged to obtain information about some, or all of our members on a range of matters which varies from time to time. Because of the amount of information sometimes involved, it may, on occasion, be necessary to have a number of people involved in collecting this data, at other times only a single office bearer, but normally within the organization only a few members of the committee of management have access to all of this material, and sometimes only one, but it may however be passed on to certain government agencies, whose number and title vary from time to time. In addition we may be required to inform them of what courses our members are taking. All of this information is private and will not be divulged to other persons or parties within or outside the organization without appropriate authority

Information that it is necessary to collect and record in order to effectively administer U3A Castlemaine, are the names and postal addresses of its members, their date of birth, and whether they are financial. With regard to particular members, such as committee members, delegates and representatives, tutors, class leaders and representatives, and some non-members who undertake tasks for the organization it is necessary to have phone numbers, and if they have them, e-mail addresses. This is due to the need to be able to quickly communicate with these people. It is desirable but not necessary to have this extra information, in regard to all members. It is also requested that people provide the name of a contact person, with their phone number and or address, so there is someone to inform in the event of sickness or injury. It is the responsibility of the individual member to obtain the consent of this person to their name being given to us. All of the above information is of necessity on file, usually both a computer file, and a physical one. Access to these files is restricted.

In addition it is requested that members have with them whenever they attend any activity of the organization certain medical information such as their blood group, the name of their G.P., any preferred hospital, and information about any medical condition they have or allergy to any medication, or medication they need regularly, so they can be treated properly if taken ill. Valuable as this latter type of information is the organization prefers not to hold this type of information because it imposes far too great a burden of responsibility on its office bearers.

So far as the information required by Government is concerned the only way to avoid revealing this information is not to participate as a student or an office bearer. Other than the government bodies to whom we are required to give this information those few office bearers within the organization who need access to part or all of this data have no right to pass any of it to another party without the consent of the person or persons to whom it refers, or other appropriate authority.

This restriction on the right to reveal data about our members also applies to the information we hold and use for administrative purposes. The only exception would be the imposition of some legal requirement upon us to reveal it.

The information held on record about members, both essential and optional, will normally only be available in full to some or all of the President, the Secretary, the Treasurer and the Public Officer as required for specific purposes. It may at times be necessary to pass on some of this information to other office holders. When a member or applicant for membership voluntarily provides any of these types of information it is assumed that this constitutes consent to use it as required for the operation of the organization.