Position statement in relation to privacy and the collection and use of personal information

Mental Health Professional Online Development (MHPOD) is a program managed by a national Mental Health Workforce Subcommittee (Workforce Subcommittee) of the Safety and Quality Partnership Standing Committee (SQPSC), consisting of State, Territory and Commonwealth d representatives. The Secretariat of the Workforce Subcommittee is located within the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services which manages the contract with Wet Fish Pty Ltd for delivery and hosting of MHPOD.

Collection of information

We only collect the personal information that is necessary to lawfully and ethically deliver online professional development in mental health. The personal information that we collect from people wishing to register to use MHPOD is detailed in the registration application form completed by all registrants. We also collect session log information for specific topics of MHPOD (for example, date and time of last access and duration of time spent on a topic) and progress through topics (topics may be completed, incomplete or not attempted). Cookies may be used to store information about your preferences in relation to your use of and access to MHPOD. The e-learning platform used for MHPOD is based on Moodle.

MHPOD uses MixPanel (a 3rd party web analytics service) to track anonymous usage statistics. With the exception of an IP address, no personal information is sent to MixPanel or any other 3rd party service. MixPanel is only used to count events such as registrations, logins, course views, course commencements and course completions.

Use and disclosure of information

We use registration information primarily to verify your right to access to MHPOD. Additionally we may:

  • Provide de-identified, aggregated information to the SQPSC and its Workforce Subcommittee for evaluation, quality improvement and further development of educational resources to better meet our workforce and user needs.
  • Provide de-identified, aggregated information to third parties (including State, Territory and Commonwealth representatives) on service usage by professional classification, work sector, work postcode and years of experience working in a mental health setting.

We use session log information to analyse demand for MHPOD, and understand usage patterns to help design online professional development that better meets the needs of users.

We will not disclose your personal information to any third party unless you have expressly authorised us to do so except as otherwise permitted or required by law. Your personal information will not be disclosed to overseas recipients.

Data security and data quality

We take appropriate steps to ensure the personal information we collect is accurate, up-to-date and complete. We also take appropriate steps to ensure that all information we hold is protected from loss, misuse, interference or unauthorised access, disclosure or modification. Personal information is stored in a database on MHPOD's secure server. The server is maintained to prevent unauthorised external access to your personal information.

We maintain security over physical premises, and access to the MHPOD database is restricted to authorised persons only, who may be responsible for updating the database, providing user support, maintenance, and assembling reports.

Access to your personal information

You can view your personal information via the profile tab on the MHPOD Learning Management System. Access to this area is password protected. Contact information can be edited by you to correct inaccuracies or reflect changes-for example, if your email address or work location changes.

Use of AI in MHPOD

MHPOD has been enhanced with artificial intelligence capabilities to improve your learning experience. Here's what you should know about this feature:

What our AI does: Our AI helps you find answers to questions about courses on our learning platform by searching through course materials and presenting relevant information in a helpful format.

Our use of AI is limited to:

  • Ask the Topic - These buttons appear in the Topic library and allow you to ask questions of a specific Topic. The scope of the knowledge base used by this feature is the Topic content and any additional resources specific to the topic of the course
  • Ask MHPOD - This button appears in the main site navigation and allows you to ask questions across all AI enabled courses on the Site. The knowledge base may be augmented with additional resources supplied by the company/organisation/government providing the training resources on MHPOD
  • Reflection questions - Some courses contain AI enhanced reflection questions. These questions take your long form response and provide feedback in the context of the question and a model response

How your data is protected:

  • We use Amazon Bedrock to power our AI, which does not store or log your prompts and completions
  • Your questions are not used to train any AI models and are not shared with third parties
  • We temporarily store anonymised questions for 30 days for system improvement purposes
  • No personal information is ever used to enhance or modify AI responses

Data sovereignty: All AI processing occurs within Australia. We do not use AI to process personal information and no personal information related to the use of this feature leaves Australian borders.

More information on Amazon Bedrock Data Protections is available on their website.

Contacting us about privacy

If you wish to contact the Workforce Subcommittee about any issue relating to your privacy and the use of MHPOD please contact:

Mental Health Workforce Subcommittee Secretariat
Health Workforce Planning & Initiatives
Victorian Department of Health and Human Services
Tel: 03-90967094
Email: mhpod@dhhs.vic.gov.au