• Home /
• Your rights /
• How we'll work together /
• Managing your mental distress

Your rights

Being affected by a privacy breach can be distressing and emotionally harmful. We understand this and appreciate that people going through our process may be experiencing some level of distress. 

However, our process needs to be safe for you - the person affected by the breach, as well as our staff and the agency involved. 

We are independent and run a neutral and impartial process. That means we can’t act as your advocate or support person. If you need help, you will need to seek that from a support person – or where necessary a mental health professional.

If you are experiencing severe mental distress, especially if you express this through suicidal ideation or threats of self-harm, it might not be appropriate for you to continue through our complaints process. 

This is a formal process, and you will need to make important decisions that may have legal consequences along the way. As an example, if you agree to a settlement with the agency this will be full and final. That means you will not be able to relitigate the issue or file in the Human Rights Review Tribunal if at a later date you decide you should have asked for something else. 

It might also mean that we need to manage your file or our communication with you differently. As an example, we wouldn’t consider it appropriate to offer a conciliation conference to a complainant that has actively threatened self-harm in their communication with us. Sometimes people ask us for urgency, but we also would not want to rush someone expressing suicidal ideation or making threats of self-harm into making a decision they aren’t equipped to manage. Rather than treating that file with urgency, we might recommend you seek help from your medical provider or support person before we go further. 

Your wellbeing is important and your safety comes first. We need you to look after your mental health first so that you can fully participate in our process. You also have the option of appointing a trusted person as your representative for your complaint and we can explain our process to your representative.

The services listed in this section are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week unless otherwise specified.