Privacy Centre Beam Dental Holdings Pty Ltd

Privacy Policy

Effective August 2026

On this page

Beam Dental Holdings Pty Limited (ACN 676 301 456) and its related bodies corporate (a full list of which is available here) (together, Beam Dental Group, we or us) operate and support dental centres including

  • Pacific Smiles Dental centres, Impression Dental Group centres, HBF Dental centres and NIB Dental Care centres.

Beam Dental Group recognises the importance of your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how Beam Dental Group manages the personal information that we collect, store, use and disclose and how to contact us if you have any further queries about our management of your personal information.

Beam Dental Group is committed to ensuring that all personal information pertaining to our patients, emergency contacts (including next-of-kin/guardians/carers of our patients), dental practitioners, healthcare professionals, employees and contractors is treated in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and applicable State/Territory health records legislation.

This Privacy Policy applies to you only to the extent that the collection and handling of personal information by Beam Dental Group is subject to the Privacy Act and State/Territory health records legislation.

1. Background§

Where the collection or handling of your personal information by Beam Dental Group is subject to the Privacy Act, Beam Dental Group must comply with the requirements of the Privacy Act. The Privacy Act regulates the manner in which personal information is handled throughout its life cycle, from collection to use, disclosure, storage, accessibility and disposal.

Personal information is information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information or opinion is true or not, and whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not.

Special provisions apply to the collection of personal information which is sensitive. This includes health information and information about a person's race, ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of political parties, professional or trade associations, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual preferences and criminal history.

Where Beam Dental Group collects your health information, the collection or handling of that information is also subject to any applicable State/Territory health records legislation.

In this Privacy Policy, all references to personal information include sensitive information unless indicated otherwise.

2. What personal information does Beam Dental Group collect?§

In the course of our business, Beam Dental Group may collect personal information about you that is necessary for us to perform our functions and activities. Beam Dental Group will only collect personal information about you by lawful and fair means and not in an unreasonably intrusive manner.

2.1 What type of personal information do we collect?§

The types of personal information we may collect and hold will vary depending on the nature of our interaction with you and may include:

  • identifying and contact information (such as your name, date of birth, gender (sex at birth), postal address, email address and telephone phone number);
  • information about your family members, next of kin, medical power of attorney, guardian or preferred/emergency contact person (Representative);
  • health information such as dental and medical history, photographs, x-rays, medications, allergies, adverse events, test results, diagnoses and treatments, social history, family history and risk factors;
  • demographic information, such as whether you identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (where provided);
  • appointment and service information, including how you booked your appointment (for example, online, by phone, or via a directory or referral platform);
  • Commonwealth and State/Territory government identifiers (such as Medicare numbers, pension, veteran or concession details and healthcare identifiers);
  • payment information, including the method of payment used (such as cash, private health insurance via HICAPS, debit or credit card, or approved payment services like Afterpay), but not your card numbers or other full payment details;
  • your communication preferences, including how and when you prefer to be contacted about appointments, treatments, post-procedure care and marketing authorisations;
  • call-related information including the number you call from, date / time of booking, and where applicable, call recordings or transcripts, used for quality assurance and training;
  • details about your health fund; and
  • qualifications, education, registrations, professional memberships (such as membership with the Australian Dental Association), insurances, vaccination status and employment history.

We may also collect some information that is not personal information because it does not identify you.  For example, we may collect anonymous answers to surveys or aggregated information about how users use our website. We do not use cookies or similar tracking technologies to re-market to you or to serve targeted advertising based on your personal information.

2.2 Who do we collect personal information from?§

Beam Dental Group may collect personal information about a range of individuals including:

  • patients who receive our dental services and products;
  • dental practitioners who engage Beam Dental Group to provide facilities and support services or who are employed by Beam Dental Group;
  • job applicants, employees and contractors of Beam Dental Group;
  • Representatives; and
  • third parties providing a product or service to Beam Dental Group, including personnel of those third parties.

3. How does Beam Dental Group typically collect personal information?§

Depending on the nature of your interaction with Beam Dental Group, we may collect your personal information in a number of ways including in-person when you attend one of our dental centres, through our websites (such as when you make an online appointment with us), through electronic or paper forms, through our patient portal and when you communicate with us (including via social media, phone or email).

If you are a patient, we usually collect your personal information directly from you wherever reasonably possible. We may also receive or collect personal information about you, from third parties such as:

  • healthcare providers: your treating healthcare providers such as your general practitioner, specialists, other dental practitioners and other healthcare professionals involved in your care, and dental technicians or laboratories where your treatment involves the manufacture of a prosthetic device. We may also collect your personal information via electronic medical platforms such as the My Health Records system;
  • your Representatives;
  • Funding Organisations: the organisation that is funding the provision of dental treatment and care to you such as your private health insurer, Medicare Australia and the Department of Veterans Affairs (amongst others) (Funding Organisation); and
  • third party service providers: persons or organisations engaged by us to assist us in carrying out the above purposes such as our online appointment booking system provider and artificial intelligence technology providers.

If you are a Representative, we typically collect your personal information directly from you or from our patients.

If you are a dental practitioner who engages Beam Dental Group to provide facilities and support services or an employee, contractor or third party service provider, we typically collect your personal information directly from you. If you are a prospective dental practitioner, employee or contractor, we may also collect your personal information from third parties such as recruitment agencies and your referees.

Where you have provided Beam Dental Group with personal information about other individuals (such as your Representatives or a person for whom you are a carer), you must ensure they are aware or will be aware of you providing their personal information to Beam Dental Group and how their personal information will be handled by Beam Dental Group. If the information you are providing to Beam Dental Group is sensitive information, such as health information, you must first obtain the individual's consent before providing their personal information to Beam Dental Group.

Some of our premises use CCTV to maintain security and safety. These systems may collect and store personal information.

4. For what purposes does Beam Dental Group collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information?§

Beam Dental Group may collect, hold, use and disclose personal information for a range of purposes which may include the following:

  • facilitate the delivery of dental services: to facilitate the delivery of dental treatment and care to patients, including booking and managing appointments;
  • communications: to contact you and manage our ongoing relationship with you including:
    • if you are a patient, appointment reminders and appointment follow ups regarding further examinations or treatments you may require; and
    • if you are a dental practitioner, information about available practice sessions, operational matters, changes and improvements, and dental courses and educational events;
  • coordination: to coordinate with other healthcare providers involved in patient care;
  • invoicing and payment processing: to manage billing and process payments in relation to dental treatment and care, including with dental payment plan providers such as Afterpay and handling claims with private health insurers, Medicare Australia and the Department of Veterans Affairs (amongst others);
  • health fund and payment system registration: if you are a dental practitioner, to facilitate registration and your relationship with health funds and payment system operators such as HICAPS;
  • government dental voucher programs: to register dental practitioners for, and to fulfil obligations under, government dental voucher programs;
  • improvement of products and services: to review, develop and improve our products and services, including our customer service provided to patients;
  • business processes: to undertake quality assurance, practice audits, accreditation, service planning, market research, patient satisfaction surveys and reviews, statistical analysis, risk assessment and management activities and to obtain legal services and insurance;
  • changes to our business: to advise patients if we or one of our dental practitioners relocate or if any of our dental centres merge, rebrand, relocate or close;
  • training: to train and educate our personnel;
  • data quality: to verify and update personal information held by us;
  • artificial intelligence (with consent): with your consent, to use tools that include artificial intelligence to support aspects of your care or related services (for example diagnostic support) (see Section 9 (Automated decision-making) below for further information);
  • marketing (with consent): with your consent, to market our products and services or the services of other third parties who have a relationship with us;
  • legal compliance: to comply with legal or regulatory obligations (such as mandatory health notifications);
  • complaints: to resolve any complaints, disputes or claims or follow up on incidents;
  • research purposes: for research, quality improvement, practitioner education or professional seminars where this is intended to improve patient care or health outcomes. Where this occurs, information will be used in a de-identified or aggregated form, unless you have given your consent for us to use identifiable information or where an ethics committee has given approval otherwise;
  • rewards programs: if you are a member of a rewards program operated by any companies we partner with to offer you rewards (Rewards Member), to enable you to redeem points and participate in promotions relevant to that reward program;
  • verification of practitioner credentials: to verify qualifications, insurance coverage, professional registrations and radiation licences of our dental practitioners;
  • display of practitioner details: to display relevant details of dental practitioners (such as name, practice location and qualifications) to patients where appropriate, including on appointment cards, centre signage and online; and
  • other purposes: for other purposes required or authorised by or under law, including purposes for which you have provided your express or implied consent.

5. To whom may Beam Dental Group disclose your personal information?§

We may share your personal information with other third parties as reasonably necessary to provide you with our products and services and for the above purposes. This includes:

  • healthcare providers: to healthcare providers including:
    • dental practitioners Beam Dental Group employs or engages to provide dental services;
    • your treating healthcare providers such as your general practitioner, specialists, other dental practitioners and other healthcare professionals involved in your care;
    • dental technicians or laboratories where your treatment involves the manufacture of a prosthetic device; and
    • via the My Health Records system;
  • your Representatives: to your Representatives;
  • Funding Organisations: to the Funding Organisations that are funding the provision of dental treatment and care to patients, including dental voucher scheme administrators and dental payment plan providers such as Afterpay;
  • auditors: to auditors, accreditation agencies and other service providers who we may appoint to ensure the integrity of our operations and services;
  • third party service providers: to other persons or organisations engaged by us to assist in carrying out the above purposes such as data storage service providers, patient management system / health software providers, IT support providers, payment system operators (such as HICAPS), artificial intelligence technology providers, insurers, mail houses and professional advisors;
  • government and regulatory authorities: to government and regulatory authorities such as Medicare Australia and government agencies administering government dental voucher programs, including to comply with legal requirements such as mandatory health notifications;
  • rewards program operators: if you are a Rewards Member, to the companies which operate the relevant rewards program;
  • purchasers: to prospective or actual purchasers of parts or all of our assets or business or of any Beam Dental Group entity;
  • members of the general public: where a dental practitioner's name, contact details and professional qualifications are presented for patient awareness, for example on appointment cards or our website; and
  • other third parties: to other third parties required or authorised by or under law, such as to comply with court orders or subpoenas served on us and where disclosure is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient's life, health or safety.

Beam Dental Group may also share your personal information between Beam Dental Group entities and its various dental centres and businesses from time to time, including so we have an integrated and complete view of our patients and to provide you with a better and more personalised service.

6. What happens if you don't provide Beam Dental Group with personal information about you?§

If you do not provide Information requested by Beam Dental Group, we may be unable to provide you with the dental care and treatment you have requested.

7. How does Beam Dental Group hold personal information and manage the data quality and security of personal information?§

Your personal information may be stored by Beam Dental Group in various forms (for example, electronically, in paper form, x-rays and images). To the extent your personal information is stored electronically, it is generally stored either at the dental centre where it was collected on secured servers, or within the software vendor's cloud storage environment and/or hosted servers.

To the extent required by the Privacy Act, Beam Dental Group will take reasonable steps to:

make sure that the personal information we collect, hold, use and disclose is accurate, complete and up to date; and

protect the personal information we hold from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

8. Does Beam Dental Group transfer personal information outside of Australia?§

From time to time, Beam Dental Group may need to disclose your personal information to organisations located outside of Australia in the course of everyday business (for example, our technology call centre is located overseas, and we use overseas providers to support functions such as cloud data storage, artificial intelligence tools and dental laboratory services).

In many of these cases where we are able to do so, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas organisation is subject to a data protection agreement with us that requires it to handle your personal information in a way that, overall, is at least substantially similar to the way in which the Australian Privacy Principles protect your personal information.

Where we are not able to enter into such an agreement with an overseas recipient, we will not take any steps to ensure that the overseas recipient complies with the Privacy Act (including the Australian Privacy Principles). This means that if the overseas recipient handles your personal information in breach of the Privacy Act, you may not be able to seek redress under the Privacy Act and we will not be accountable under the Privacy Act for that handling. You may also not be able to seek redress in the overseas jurisdiction. In addition, an overseas recipient could be subject to a foreign law that could compel the disclosure of your personal information to another third party, such as an overseas authority. By continuing to be a patient of, or a dental practitioner working at, Beam Dental Group, you consent to us disclosing your personal information to such overseas recipients in these circumstances.

The countries to which we may disclose your personal information in the course of our functions and activities are listed here. This list may be updated from time to time.

In addition to the above, dental technicians and laboratories, including those located overseas, are engaged at the discretion of the treating dental practitioner. If you are a patient and your treating dental practitioner proposes to use an overseas dental laboratory in connection with your treatment, they will advise you of this and the country in which it is located.

9. Use of artificial intelligence and automated decision-making§

With your consent, Beam Dental Group may use computer programs, including tools that incorporate artificial intelligence, to support (but not replace) human decision-making in certain aspects of our operations. This includes:

  • diagnostic support tools: we may use artificial intelligence tools to analyse dental x-ray images and help identify potential dental pathologies. These tools use your health information (including x-ray images) to generate outputs that a dental practitioner considers as part of their own clinical assessment. All clinical decisions about your diagnosis and treatment remain those of your treating dental practitioner, who is not bound to accept the tool's output; and
  • automated transcription providers: we may use providers of automated transcription services to assist with recording and generating clinical notes in real-time.

Where AI is used in a clinical setting, your practitioner will explain how it is used as part of your appointment.

In addition to the above, we may use artificial intelligence tools (such as virtual receptionists and booking assistants) to help manage patient calls and bookings. These tools may schedule, reschedule or confirm appointments.

The personal information used in the operation of the above tools includes your name, contact details, appointment and referral information, dental and medical history, photographs, x-rays and other health information relevant to the tool’s function.

No decisions about your care or treatment are made solely by a computer program. Our diagnostic support and booking tools are designed to inform or assist, rather than replace, a human decision-maker, and a person always remains responsible for the ultimate decision affecting you. The kinds of decisions for which these tools do things substantially and directly related to making the decision include decisions about:

  • the identification of potential dental pathologies for clinical assessment by your treating dental practitioner;
  • the scheduling, rescheduling or confirmation of patient appointments; and
  • the recording and generation of clinical notes for review by your treating dental practitioner.

We also use tools that incorporate artificial intelligence for internal, non-clinical operational purposes such as drafting internal documents. These operational tools do not generally use the personal information of patients and do not make decisions about individuals.

If you have any questions about our use of artificial intelligence or automated tools, or if you would like more information about a decision that has affected you, please contact our Privacy Officer using the details set out in Section 11 below.

10. Communicating with you and direct marketing§

If you consent to receiving marketing communications from us, the Beam Dental Group entity to which you provide that consent may use your personal information (including sensitive/health information) to contact you in relation to products, services or other offers we think may be of interest to you, including oral health tips, information about treatment options, open nights and special offers. This may include products, services or other offers of that Beam Dental Group entity, any other Beam Dental Group entity or third parties with whom it has a relationship. That entity may do this through various channels depending on your preferences (for example, by SMS, phone and email). Where you are a Representative for a patient (for example, a parent or guardian of a dependant), these marketing communications may also relate to that patient's care.

If you consent to receiving marketing communications, this consent will continue until you opt-out in accordance with this Section 10. You may opt-out of receiving marketing communications from a Beam Dental Group entity at any time by:

  • submitting an 'unsubscribe' request via the link in our communications;
  • sending a 'STOP' request in response to a SMS message;
  • updating your communication preferences via the patient portal; or
  • contacting us using the contact details below.

Please note that Beam Dental Group comprises a number of separate entities and each entity may send you marketing communications independently. An opt-out submitted using the methods above (for example, by clicking ‘unsubscribe’ or sending ‘STOP’) will only unsubscribe you from the particular Beam Dental Group entity that sent the relevant communication. It will not unsubscribe you from marketing communications you have consented to by other Beam Dental Group entities. If you wish to opt out of receiving marketing communications from all Beam Dental Group entities at once, please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact details set out in Section 11 below who can action a group-wide opt-out on your behalf.

If you are a patient and you do not wish to receive marketing material from Beam Dental Group, please note that Beam Dental Group may still contact you in relation to our ongoing relationship with you relating to the dental care and treatment we have already provided you while you remain our patient (for example, in relation to invoices and appointment reminders).

11. How can you access or correct your personal information and contact Beam Dental Group?§

Please contact the Beam Dental Group Privacy Officer if you would like to seek access to, or request that we correct, the personal information we hold about you:

Beam Dental Group will generally provide you with access to your personal information if practicable, and will take reasonable steps to amend any personal information about you which is inaccurate or out of date.

Beam Dental Group may charge a reasonable fee for providing your personal information. We will let you know in advance of charging any fee to confirm that you still wish to proceed with your request.  In some circumstances, and in accordance with the Privacy Act any applicable State/Territory health records legislation, Beam Dental Group may not permit access to your personal information, or may refuse to correct your personal information, in which case we will provide you with reasons for this decision.

12. How Beam Dental Group handles complaints§

If you have any concerns or complaints about the manner in which your personal information has been collected or handled by Beam Dental Group, please advise us of the concern or complaint in writing and send it to the Beam Dental Group Privacy Officer using the contact details set out in Section 11 above. The concern or complaint will be considered or investigated and we will respond to the complaint as soon as practicable.

If you remain dissatisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) who responds to complaints about the misuse of personal information.

To lodge a complaint with the OAIC:

13. Further information§

Further information about the application of the Privacy Act can be found at the website of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at https://www.oaic.gov.au/.

14. Changes to our Privacy Policy§

This Privacy Policy is effective from August 2026. As this Privacy Policy is updated from time to time, to obtain a copy of the latest version at any time, you should visit our website at privacy.pacificsmilesgroup.com.au.