Privacy Policy

Nurse Nellie helps patients provide information before or as part of a healthcare consultation.

It may ask you questions about your symptoms, medical history, medications, concerns and other health information. It can then organise and summarise that information so it is available to your healthcare professional.

Nurse Nellie uses automated technologies, including artificial intelligence (“AI”), to assist with this process.

Depending on how you use Nurse Nellie, we may collect information such as:

• your name and contact details;
• your date of birth or other identifying information;
• information about your healthcare provider or appointment;
• symptoms and the reason you are seeking healthcare;
• medical conditions and medical history;
• medications, allergies and treatments;
• family, social or lifestyle information relevant to your healthcare;
• answers you provide to questions asked by Nurse Nellie;
• information you choose to enter into the service;
• technical information about your use of Nurse Nellie, such as device, browser, security and system information; and
• communications you send to us.

Some of this information is health information and sensitive information under Australian privacy law.

We only seek information that is reasonably relevant to providing the Nurse Nellie service.

We collect and process information primarily so that Nurse Nellie can:

• understand why you are seeking healthcare;
• ask relevant follow-up questions;
• organise the information you provide;
• prepare a useful summary for your healthcare professional;
• make that information available to your healthcare professional;
• operate, secure and maintain the service;
• troubleshoot technical problems;
• improve the safety and performance of Nurse Nellie; and
• meet our legal and regulatory obligations.

We do not require you to provide information that is unrelated to the purpose for which you are using Nurse Nellie.

Information you provide through Nurse Nellie may be made available to the healthcare professional or healthcare service associated with your consultation.

That is one of the primary purposes of Nurse Nellie: helping you communicate relevant information to the clinician caring for you.

Authorised UX1 personnel may also have limited access to information where reasonably necessary to operate, support, secure or troubleshoot the service.

We seek to limit access to personal and health information to people who have a legitimate reason to access it.

Nurse Nellie uses AI and other automated technologies to help understand information, ask relevant questions, transcribe voice input and organise or summarise what you tell us.

Information you enter is sent to the UX1-operated Nurse Nellie backend so that the service can process your consultation. This backend is part of the Nurse Nellie service and is not a third-party AI model provider.

We have designed Nurse Nellie to minimise the amount of identifying health information provided to third-party AI services.

For our ordinary AI processing, identifying information is removed within the Nurse Nellie backend before clinical information is submitted to third-party AI model providers.

There is one important exception to this process: voice transcription fallback.

If you choose to provide information to Nurse Nellie using your voice, your speech needs to be converted into text.

Nurse Nellie first attempts transcription using speech-recognition capabilities available through your browser or device. How that pathway processes voice depends on your browser and device provider.

In limited circumstances, such as when the primary transcription method is unavailable or unsuccessful, Nurse Nellie may use Deepgram, a third-party speech-to-text provider, as a fallback transcription service.

When this occurs, your audio recording is sent to Deepgram and processed to convert your speech into text.

Because the transcription occurs before Nurse Nellie can identify and remove identifying information contained in your speech, the audio recording may contain personal or health information you have spoken — for example, your name, the name of another person, a medical condition or other identifying information.

Deepgram is used only to process the audio for transcription. The fallback service is configured so that the audio is processed transiently and is not retained by Deepgram after processing.

The resulting text then continues through Nurse Nellie's normal processing, including our measures for minimising disclosure of identifying information to other third-party AI systems.

We use this fallback only where required to provide voice transcription rather than as our ordinary processing pathway.

Your consultation answers are first sent to the UX1-operated Nurse Nellie backend. For ordinary AI processing, that backend removes identifying information before providing third-party AI model providers with de-identified clinical text or other de-identified information required to perform a particular processing task.

Third-party AI model providers are not ordinarily provided with information that Nurse Nellie has identified as personally identifying you.

The exception is the voice transcription fallback described above. If that fallback is required, Deepgram temporarily processes the audio recording necessary to transcribe your speech. Because the audio has not yet been transcribed and de-identified, it may contain identifying health information.

We minimise information provided to third-party services and use it only for the functions required to provide Nurse Nellie.

Like most online services, Nurse Nellie also relies on specialist technology providers to operate. These may include providers of cloud infrastructure and hosting, databases and data storage, cybersecurity and monitoring, email or communications, authentication, technical support and AI processing.

Some of these providers may process personal information on our behalf. Where they do, we take reasonable steps to select appropriate providers, limit their access to what is required for their role, and protect the information provided to them.

Some technology providers used by Nurse Nellie may operate infrastructure or personnel outside Australia.

Where personal information is disclosed or processed overseas, we take reasonable steps to ensure that it is handled appropriately and in accordance with applicable Australian privacy requirements.

The voice transcription fallback described above may process an audio recording containing personal or health information before that information can be removed.

Further information about relevant overseas service providers or locations can be requested by contacting us.

We use personal information for purposes connected with providing and operating Nurse Nellie.

We do not sell your health information.

We do not sell your personal information to advertisers.

We design our AI processing so that identifying information is removed before clinical information is provided to third-party AI model providers wherever practicable.

The limited voice transcription fallback described above may temporarily process audio containing identifying or health information. That audio is used for transcription and is not retained by the transcription provider after processing.

We will not use your health information for unrelated marketing without an appropriate legal basis or your consent where consent is required.

We may use information to understand how Nurse Nellie performs and to improve its functionality, reliability and safety.

Where reasonably practicable, we use aggregated or de-identified information for analytics, product improvement and research rather than identifiable health information.

De-identified or aggregated information may be retained and used where it can no longer reasonably identify you.

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal and health information against loss, misuse, interference and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

These measures may include access controls, encryption, authentication, logging, monitoring, secure infrastructure and separation of identifying information from information used for AI processing.

No online system can guarantee absolute security. We continually assess and improve our security measures having regard to the sensitivity of the information we handle.

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide Nurse Nellie, support the healthcare service for which it was collected, comply with applicable legal obligations, resolve disputes, maintain security and meet legitimate operational requirements.

Different types of information may be retained for different periods.

When personal information is no longer required, we take reasonable steps to delete or de-identify it, subject to any legal obligations requiring its retention.

You may request access to personal information UX1 holds about you.

You may also ask us to correct information that you believe is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading.

In some circumstances, access may need to be provided through your healthcare provider, particularly where information forms part of their clinical records.

We may need to verify your identity before providing access to personal information.

You may contact us to request deletion of personal information held by Nurse Nellie.

Whether particular information can be deleted may depend on why it is held and whether UX1 or your healthcare provider has a legal obligation or legitimate requirement to retain it.

Information that has already been incorporated into a healthcare provider's medical record is controlled by that healthcare provider and may be subject to separate medical-record retention requirements.

Nurse Nellie and your healthcare provider may have different responsibilities for information.

Once information generated through Nurse Nellie is copied, transferred or incorporated into your healthcare provider's clinical record, the healthcare provider will generally be responsible for its handling as part of that record.

You should contact the relevant healthcare provider if you wish to access, correct or ask questions about information contained in their clinical records.

Nurse Nellie may use cookies and similar technologies that are necessary for the website and service to function, maintain security, remember settings and understand how the service is used.

Where analytics services are used, we seek to minimise the personal information provided to them.

We do not intentionally send identifiable clinical information entered into Nurse Nellie to advertising or general-purpose website analytics services.

UX1 maintains processes for responding to suspected privacy and security incidents.

If a data breach occurs that is likely to result in serious harm and notification is required under applicable law, we will take appropriate steps, including notifying affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) where required.

Nurse Nellie may be used in connection with healthcare provided to children and young people.

The appropriate person to provide information or consent may depend on the age, maturity and circumstances of the patient and the healthcare service being provided.

Healthcare providers remain responsible for determining appropriate consent arrangements for their patients.

UX1 Pty Ltd handles personal information in accordance with applicable Australian privacy law, including the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, where they apply.

Other health privacy laws may also apply depending on the circumstances and location in which healthcare is provided.

If you have a concern about how Nurse Nellie has handled your personal information, please contact us first so that we can investigate and respond.

Please provide enough information for us to understand the issue.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may have the right to make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) or another applicable privacy regulator.

We may update this Privacy Policy as Nurse Nellie develops, our technology changes or privacy requirements change.

The current version will be published on NurseNellie.com together with the date it was last updated.

If we make a material change to how we handle health information, we will take reasonable steps to make that change clear to affected users.

For privacy questions, requests for access or correction, deletion requests or privacy complaints, please contact: