Privacy Policy for Australia
Introduction
We”, “us” and “our” means Trimont AU Pty Limited ACN 631 031 313, Trimont REA AU Pty Limited ACN 639 548 048, Trimont REA Agency Pty Limited ACN 639 116 448, and TREA ST Pty Limited ACN 639 547 283.
We collect personal information in the course of doing business in Australia. This privacy policy has been developed to ensure that such information is handled appropriately.
We are committed to complying with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) in relation to all personal information we collect. Our commitment is demonstrated in this policy. The Privacy Act incorporates the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). The APPs set out the way that personal information must be treated.
By providing your details, you consent to us collecting, holding, using and disclosing your personal information in accordance with this policy.
Who does the privacy policy apply to?
This policy applies to any person in relation to whom we currently hold, or may in the future collect, personal information. Broadly, we collect personal information from our clients, prospective clients and other individuals that contact us with enquiries, prospective and current contractors, consultants and agents, and prospective employees. This policy does not apply to acts and practices in relation to ‘employee records’ of our current and former employees, as these are exempt from the Privacy Act.
What information does the privacy policy apply to?
This policy applies to personal information. In broad terms, ‘personal information’ is information or opinions relating to a particular individual from which such individual can be identified. Information is not personal information where the information cannot be linked to an identifiable individual.
Anonymity and pseudonymity
We will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify personal information if that information is no longer needed for the purposes for which we are authorised to use it.
If you want to use a pseudonym or remain anonymous when dealing with us, you should notify us and we will try to accommodate your request, subject to our ability to interact with you without having your personal information.
What kinds of personal information do we collect and hold?
Personal information
The personal information we may collect differs, depending on the nature of our interaction with you.
If you are a client or prospective client (or an individual representative of, or individual otherwise involved with, such), we may collect and hold personal information about you, which may include contact information, financial and credit information, date and place of birth, use of our products and services, payment and banking details, details of enquiries or complaints that you make, government related identifiers, and other personal information required to provide products and services.
If you are a prospective or current contractor, consultant or agent or prospective employee, we may collect and hold personal information about you, which may include sensitive information (see below), contact information, date of birth, employment history, tax file number information, insurance information, credit information, licence, education and banking details, government related identifiers, records of contact and details of enquiries, conversations and correspondence made or received with you, and other personal information required to engage you as a contractor, consultant, agent or employee.
If you are a user of our website, we may also collect information (that may include personal information) about how you access, use and interact with our website. Like many websites, we may use automatic data collection tools, such as cookies, embedded web links and web beacons to do so. This information may include the location from which you have come to the site and the pages you have visited, technical data, which may include IP address, the types of devices you are using to access the website, device attributes, browser type, language and operating system, and page clicks, time spent and other automatically collected meta-data.
Sensitive information
‘Sensitive information’ includes personal information that may have serious ramifications for the individual concerned if used inappropriately. Generally, we will only collect the following types of sensitive information about prospective or current contractors, consultants or agents or prospective employees: health information (including but not limited to drug and alcohol testing results), criminal history, membership of professional or trade associations, and membership of trade unions. We will not collect sensitive information without the consent of the individual to whom the information relates unless permitted under the Privacy Act.
How do we collect personal information?
We may collect personal information directly from the individual concerned, for example via online forms, telephone calls, face-to-face meetings and email, or from third parties such as our employees, contractors, consultants and agents, parties to whom we provide services, your current and previous employers, government bodies, and referrals.
How do we hold personal information?
We generally hold personal information in paper files stored securely at our premises; and electronically, in computer system and databases either operated by us or our external service providers. We implement and maintain processes and security measures to protect personal information which we hold from misuse, interference or loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Some of these processes and systems include using security cards or access codes to access areas that contain personal information, using secure servers to store personal information, and using unique usernames, passwords and other protections on systems that can access personal information.
Why do we collect, hold, use or disclose personal information?
We take reasonable steps to hold, use and disclose personal information for the primary purpose for which we collect it. The primary purpose for which we collect information varies depending on the individual that we are collecting the information from but is generally as follows:
- in the case of clients and prospective clients (or an individual representative of, or individual otherwise involved with, such), to provide our products and services;
- in the case of other persons that contact us (including users of our website), to assist us to respond to your enquiries or complaints;
- in the case of a current contractor, consultant or agent, to assist us in providing our products and services; and
- in the case of a prospective contractor, consultant, agent or employee, to assess your suitability for employment or engagement.
Personal information may also be used or disclosed by us for secondary purposes that are within your reasonable expectations and that are related to the primary purpose of collection. For example, we may collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information to keep records of transactions to assist in future enquiries and improve our website, products and services, to provide support relating to our products and services, for payment purposes, and to provide you with updates that are relevant to you or your business.
We may disclose personal information to:
- our contractors, consultants, agents, employees or other third parties with whom we or our customers have a business or commercial relationship;
- government bodies;
- emergency service providers and law enforcement agencies;
- our external auditors, insurance providers and brokers and advisers; and
- our related entities.
We will only disclose personal information to third parties if we are required or authorised by law to do so, we have received express consent to the disclosure, or consent may be reasonably inferred from the circumstances; or we are otherwise permitted to disclose the information under the Privacy Act.
If we disclose personal information to government bodies, the collection, use and disclosure of that personal information may be regulated by other relevant legislation such as the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (NSW).
Will we disclose personal information outside Australia?
We will disclose personal information outside of Australia if you expressly request us to do so. We may disclose personal information to our affiliates located in the Netherlands, United States of America and the United Kingdom. Furthermore, we may use data centres located overseas, including in the United States of America, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
In some cases, we may indirectly disclose personal information overseas through disclosures to our contractors and service providers that have data servers located overseas.
Where we disclose your personal information to parties located overseas (or which have data centres located in other countries), we take reasonable steps to ensure that those parties will handle the personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles. We are not required to take such steps if we believe that the overseas recipient is already subject to a law that has the effect of protecting personal information in a substantially similar way to the relevant law in Australia, or with your consent.
How do we manage your credit information?
What kinds of credit information may we collect?
In the course of offering and providing products and services, we may collect and hold credit information, which may include identification information, information about any credit that has been provided to you; your repayment history and any defaults, if any court proceedings are initiated against you in relation to your credit activities, information about any bankruptcy or debt agreements involving you, any publicly available information about your credit worthiness, and other information about your credit history and activities.
We may also collect personal information that may affect a person’s credit worthiness from other credit providers (e.g. banks) that collect that information from credit reporting bodies. The kinds of personal information we collect may include any of those kinds of personal information outlined in section 2 of this policy.
How and when do we collect credit information?
In most cases, we will only collect credit information if it is relevant to provide our products and services. We may collect credit information directly or from third parties including parties to whom we provide services that you are involved with, government bodies, banks and other credit providers, referrals, and your suppliers and creditors. We do not collect and hold credit information from credit reporting bodies unless it is incidentally collected in providing our products and services.
How do we store and hold the credit information?
We store and hold credit information in the same manner as outlined in section 4 of this policy.
Why do we collect the credit information?
Our usual purpose for collecting, holding, using and disclosing credit information is to enable us to provide our products and services. We may also collect the credit information to process payments; and to assess eligibility for credit.
Overseas disclosure of the credit information
We may disclose your credit information to entities outside of Australia in the same manner as outlined in section 6 of this policy.
How can I access my credit information, correct errors or make a complaint?
You can seek access to and request a correction to your credit information or complain about a breach of your privacy in the same manner as set out in section 8 of this policy. We will deal with a complaint in the same manner as set out in section 8 of this policy.
How do you make complaints and access and correct your personal information or credit information?
If you believe that any information we hold about you is incorrect, please contact us so we can make the necessary change(s).
Access to information and correcting personal information
You may request access to the personal information held by us or ask us for your personal information to be corrected by using the contact details in this section.
We will grant you access to your personal information as soon as possible, subject to the request circumstances.
In keeping with our commitment to protect the privacy of personal information, we may not disclose personal information to you without proof of identity.
We may deny access to personal information if:
- the request is unreasonable;
- providing access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of another person;
- providing access would pose a serious and imminent threat to the life or health of any person; or
- there are other legal grounds to deny the request.
We may charge a fee for reasonable costs incurred in responding to an access request. The fee (if any) will be disclosed prior to it being levied.
If the personal information we hold is not accurate, complete and up-to-date, we will take reasonable steps to correct it so that it is accurate, complete and up-to-date, where it is appropriate to do so.
Complaints
If you would like to complain about an interference with your privacy, then you must follow the following process:
- The complaint must first be made to us in writing, using the contact details in this section. We will have a reasonable time to respond to the complaint.
- If the privacy issue cannot be resolved, you may take your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
Who to contact
A person may make a complaint or request to access or correct personal information about them held by us. Such a request must be made in writing to the following address:
Postal Address: Suite 8.02, Level 8, 4-6 Bligh Street, Sydney, NSW 2000
Telephone number: +612 9160 4163
Email address: legaldepartment@trimont.com
Changes to the policy
We may update, modify or remove this policy at any time without prior notice. Any changes to the privacy policy will be published on our website.
This policy is effective 1 January 2021. If you have any comments on the policy, please contact the privacy officer with the contact details in section 8 of this policy.