What is personal information?

 

"Personal information" means any information or opinion, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable. In general terms, this includes information or an opinion that personally identifies you either directly (e.g. your name) or indirectly.

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What personal information do we collect?

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The personal information we collect about you depends on the nature of your dealings with us or what you choose to share with us.
Below are some examples of personal information we commonly collect:

• Name

• Contact details such as email, address and phone number

• Place of work

• Areas of work you are interested in

• Information required as part of a recruitment or volunteering process

• bank account details

• Communication preferences

• Statistical information regarding the use of our websites, including website users IP addresses and the dates and times of visits

 

How do we collect your personal information?

• Online activity by visitors to our website or their use of social media

• Interacting with us in person, on the phone or online

• Requests for services or attending a PartnerSPEAK event in person or online

• Requests for brochures, or to be contact for further information about our services

• Subscribing to our mailing lists

• Employment and volunteering applications

• Responses to surveys or research conducted by us on our behalf

• The PartnerSPEAK Peer Support online forum

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Under certain circumstances, PartnerSPEAK may need to collect sensitive information about you. This might include any information or opinion about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, memberships of professional bodies, sexual preferences, criminal records and health information.

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If we collect your sensitive information, we will do so only with your consent, if it is necessary to prevent a serious or imminent threat to life or health, or as otherwise required or authorised by law, and we take appropriate measures to protect the security of this information.

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You do not have to provide us with your personal information. Where possible, we will give you the option to interact with us anonymously or by using a pseudonym.

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Collecting personal information from third parties

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We may also collect your personal information from third parties or through publicly available sources, for example from government bodies or other agencies that may refer you to us. We collect your personal information from these third parties so that we can provide services to you, or we can improve the delivery of our overall services.

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How do we use your personal information?

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We use your personal information for many purposes in connection with our functions and activities, including the following purposes:

• Provide you with information or services that you request from us

• Continuously improve the quality of your service experience and our service offering

• Internal administrative and compliance purposes

• Marketing and research purposes

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Disclosure of personal information to third parties

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We may disclose your personal information to third parties in accordance with this Policy in circumstances where you would reasonably expect us to disclose your information. For example, we may disclose your personal information to:

• Our third party service providers (for example, our IT providers)

• Our marketing providers

• Our professional services advisors

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Transfer of personal information overseas

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Some of the third-party service providers we disclose personal information to may be based in or have servers located outside of Australia.

Where we disclose your personal information to third parties overseas, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that data security and appropriate privacy practices are maintained. We will only disclose to overseas third parties if:

• You have given us your consent to disclose personal information to that third party, or

• We reasonably believe that:

  • The overseas recipient is subject to a law or binding scheme that is, overall substantially similar, and

  • The law or binding scheme can be enforced, or

  • The disclosure is required or authorised by an Australian law or court / tribunal order.
     

How do we protect your personal information?

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PartnerSPEAK will take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information that we hold about you is kept confidential and secure, including by:

• Having robust security of our premises and databases

• Taking measures to restrict access to only personnel who need that personal information to effectively provide services to you

• Having technological measures in place

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Online activity

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Cookies

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The PartnerSPEAK website uses cookies. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers the website puts on your device if you allow it. These cookies recognise when your device has visited our website before, so we can distinguish you from other users of the website. This improves your experience and the PartnerSPEAK website.
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We do not use cookies to identify you, just to improve your experience on our website. If you do not wish to use the cookies, you can amend the settings on your internet browser so it will not automatically download cookies. However, if you remove or block cookies on your computer, please be aware that your browsing experience and our website's functionality may be affected.

Website analytics

Our website uses web analytics to help us better understand visitor traffic, so we can improve our services. Although this data is mostly anonymous, it is possible that under certain circumstances, we may connect it to you.

Direct marketing

We may send you direct marketing communications and information about our services, opportunities, or events that we consider may be of interest to you if you have requested or consented to receive such communications. These communications may be sent in various forms including mail, SMS, fax and email, in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Australian Spam Act 2003 (Cth). If you indicate a preference for a method of communication, we will endeavor to use that method whenever practical to do so.

You may opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us at any time by following the instructions to unsubscribe set out in relevant communication or contacting us using the form available on our "Contact" page.

In addition, we may also use your personal information or disclose your personal information to third parties for the purposes of advertising, including online behavioural advertising, website personalisation, and to provide targeted or retargeted advertising content to you (including through third party websites).

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How to access and correct your personal information

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PartnerSPEAK will endeavor to keep your personal information accurate, complete and up to date.
If you wish to make a request to access and/or correct the personal information we hold about you, you should make the request by contacting us and we will usually respond within 10 days.

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Links to third party sites 

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PartnerSPEAK's website may contain links to websites operated by third parties. If you access a third-party website through our website, personal information may be collected by that third-party website. We will make no representation or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party provider or website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party or website. Third-party providers/websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies.

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How to contact us

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If you have a question or concern in relation to our handling of your personal information or this Policy, you can contact us for assistance as follows:

Email: contact@partnerspeak.org.au
Post: 15 Pax Parade, Curlewis, VIC 3222

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Inquiries and complaints

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For more information or complaints about how PartnerSPEAK handles, processes and manages your personal information, please contact us.

If you've made a complaint, we will acknowledge that your complaint has been received and action it as soon as possible. In Australia, if we fail to respond to your complaint within 30 days of receiving it in writing you have the right, depending on the jurisdiction, to make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner at any time, though the Privacy Commissioner may refer you back to us if you did not make the complaint to us in the first instance.

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