Website privacy statement

In accordance with the Guidelines for Federal and ACT Government World Wide Web (WWW) sites issued by the Australian Privacy Commissioner, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) provides the following privacy statements relating to this web site.

Please refer to the full version of the DVA Privacy Policy for more information about how DVA manages personal information.

Security of your information

DVA applies a range of security controls to protect its web sites from unauthorised access. However, users should be aware that the World Wide Web is an unsecured public network. Users should be aware that there are risks when transmitting information on the internet. Information submitted unencrypted by electronic mail or web forms may be at risk of being intercepted, read or modified. Some interactive services on this web site may request personal information as part of the provision of the service. DVA encrypts all data transmitted between your computer’s web browser and DVA’s computers when you make use of any of these services. The encryption process used by DVA is secure socket layer (SSL). For SSL encryption to work, your browser must support SSL.

External sites not operated by DVA that are linked to this site are outside DVA’s control and you are advised to review their privacy and security statements when visiting those sites.

Site visit data

DVA makes a record of your visit and logs the following information for statistical purposes:

• the user’s server address
• the user’s top level domain name (e.g. .com, .gov, .au, .uk etc.)
• the date and time of the visit to the site
• the pages accessed and documents downloaded
• the previous site visited
• the type of browser used
• the type of device used.

DVA will not make any attempt to identify users or their browsing activities except, in the unlikely event of an investigation, where a law enforcement agency may exercise a warrant to inspect the internet service provider’s logs.

Cookies

A cookie is a collection of information, usually including a username and the current date and time, stored on the local computer of a person using the World Wide Web, used chiefly by web sites to identify users who have previously registered or visited their site.

Cookies can be ‘persistent’ or ‘session-based’:

• persistent cookies are stored on your computer, contain an expiration date, and may be used to track your browsing behaviour upon returning to the web site from which the cookie was issued
• session-based cookies are short-lived, are used only during a browsing session, and expire when you close your browser.

The DVA web site uses session cookies during a search query of the web site. No other cookies are employed on the web site except for those associated with the search engine. Web site statistics for the DVA web site are generated from the web logs as outlined above under ‘Site visit data’.

Once you have closed your browser, the session cookie set by the DVA web site is destroyed and DVA does not maintain any personal information that might identify you should you visit our web site at a later date.

DVA does not use persistent cookies on its web sites.

Use of email

If you do not wish to contact DVA through email or use of an online form you can contact DVA through other means, such as post, fax or telephone, see DVA’s contact details (this link will open in a new tab). If you choose to use email to request information of a personal nature, DVA may provide that information to you by replying to your email. If you do not want DVA to provide personal information to you using email, please include a postal address, fax number and/or telephone number so that you can be contacted by your preferred method.

DVA also has a Secure Mail Facility for the sending of sensitive emails. Currently, external parties are not able to initiate and send sensitive e-mails via this facility. External parties are only able to respond to sensitive e-mails sent to them by DVA. See further information and tips for using the Secure Mail Facility (this link will open in a new tab).

Subscription lists

If you subscribe to a mailing list on any of DVA’s web sites, your email address and any other personal information that you might provide will be maintained on our mailing list. The mailing list is hosted by an external service provider. It will only be used for the purpose for which you have provided it and will not be added to another mailing list without your prior consent, which DVA will seek through a request in writing. We will not use your email address for any other purpose and will not disclose it without your consent.

No spam

The publication of electronic addresses on this web site is for the information of users. DVA does not authorise the receipt of commercial electronic messages (generally known as spam) at any published electronic address. They are to be used for legitimate correspondence only.