What's
more, we take all possible steps to ensure that your information is not
disclosed to - or accessed by - unauthorised persons.
As
our customer, we also respect your right to be aware of who has information
about you, what they are doing with it and why, and who else they are
sharing it with.
Wide Bay Australia
Mini-Lease Pty Ltd (ABN 69 068 790 152)and joint venture
operations:
Wide Bay Australia
Financial Planning Services Pty Ltd (ABN 15 088 124 172)
has
adopted a privacy compliance culture that cements this relationship with
you. Its foundation is the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988, in particular
the National Privacy Principles.
The
Wide Bay Australia Ltd Privacy Policy is detailed below.
Wide Bay Australia Financial Planning Services as a joint venture
company has adopted its own Privacy
Policy
Collection
We
collect personal information about you to assess your applications for
and to establish and maintain a financial services relationship with you
and to enhance our relationship with you. This includes offering and providing
products, service and advice on investment, finance, banking, insurance,
financial planning and related products and services.
Types
of information we collect and handle may include (but is not limited to):
identity and contact details of you and your referees, information about
your financial circumstances, financial transactions and history, products
or services you may have expressed an interest in, applied for or use,
and in some cases, your sensitive information such as health details.
Generally,
we collect personal information directly from you - for example on application
forms, in correspondence, face-to-face, or over-the-telephone or via the
internet.
On
occasions, we obtain information about you from others - for example credit
references when applying for finance or details of payments associated
with electronic debits from your account.
Collecting
and handling this information allows us to provide the financial services
you have selected, offer further financial services to you in the future,
manage our financial services relationship with you and tailor these services
to best suit your needs.
From
time to time, you may provide us with personal information relating to
other individuals (for example direct credits to another person's account).
In these cases, it is your responsibility to ensure that this person is
aware that you have his/her information, the purposes (and persons) involved
in the collection, use and disclosure of that information by you, and
that we can be contacted (including to access and correct that information)
at the address below.
In
most cases we will require you to specifically consent to any collection,
use or disclosure of your personal information. Your consent will usually
be required in writing (for example on application forms) but we may accept
your verbal consent in certain circumstances.
For
example your consent may be implied through your conduct with us such
as when you send us a letter or provide information over-the-counter at
a branch to a customer service consultant.
However,
no matter how your personal information is collected it is dealt with
in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Use
& Disclosure
Our
use and disclosure of information about you may be necessary to establish
and maintain an investment, finance, banking, insurance, financial planning
or related financial services relationship with you.
We
will not use or disclose this information for a purpose unrelated to this
or outside your reasonable expectations unless we have your agreement
or need to meet a legal obligation or authority.
As
with all financial institutions we rely on third party suppliers to carry
out specialised activities. While your personal information may be provided
to these third parties to enable them to perform their agreed activities,
they are bound by confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements and are
prohibited from using the information for any other purpose.
We
do not send information outside of Australia unless authorised to do so
by law.
Openness
If
you would like more detailed information on Wide Bay's handling of personal
information (including the sort of personal information we hold, for what
purposes and how we collect, hold, use and disclose that information)
please contact the address below.
Quality,
Access & Correction
Your
personal information is integral to decisions we make about our products
and services for you. It is essential that this information is correct
and up-to-date.
You are encouraged
to assist us to ensure this by alerting us to any changes in your particular
circumstances. Simply contact us and advise the changes to your personal
information and we will take reasonable steps to ensure the information
is accurate, complete and up-to-date.
In some cases, we
may require you to complete a form with the new details or provide us
with additional evidence. If we refuse to correct personal information
we will give you a reason. You may choose to provide a statement claiming
that the information is not accurate, complete or up-to-date and we will
take reasonable steps to associate this statement with the information.
You are also welcome
to get access to information we hold about you and to draw any inaccuracies
to our attention. You may obtain specific information (eg contact details)
in most cases by contacting our Head Office or branches and we will provide
details of the information after establishing your identity.
For more complex enquiries,
for example to access information held across the Society or in archives
- you should complete a "Request for Access to Personal Information"
form available by contacting the address below.
Our proposed collection,
use and disclosure and your access and correction rights relating to your
personal information are subject to the restrictions imposed by the Privacy
Act 1988. Accordingly, we reserve the right to limit access in certain
legally allowable circumstances - in such an event this reason will be
provided to you.
Please
note that there may be a fee for supplying the information and/or documentation
to you. This fee is calculated as an estimate of the cost to reimburse
us for the expense of retrieving and/or copying the information or documentation
and will be detailed in the brochure "Deposit Accounts and Banking
Services: Schedule of Fees and Charges". We will provide a verbal
estimate of the amount of this fee before retrieval of the information
and/or documentation is undertaken.
Security
We
are committed to safeguarding information we handle about you. This includes
preventing its misuse or loss and unauthorised access, modification or
disclosure both internally and externally.
Some
of the ways we protect your personal information include:
- External and internal
premises security
- Restricted access
to personal information
- Entering into confidentiality agreements with employees and contractors
- Having in place stand-by systems to deal with major business interruptions
- Maintaining technology products to prevent unauthorised computer access
- Regular reviewing and testing of technology in order to improve the level of security
We will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify information
if it is no longer needed.
Third Parties
For some of the products and services we offer, we act as an agent or supplier
for a third party. For example, for insurance and credit card products. A
list of these third parties is available by contacting the address below.
In respect of the collection, use, disclosure, transfer and management of
personal information for these products and services – we comply with
the procedures and policies required by the third parties to whom we act as
agent or supplier.
Details of the purposes, procedures, policies and your access, correction
and other rights in regard to your personal information for these products
and services can be obtained by contacting these third parties directly. If
you are unsure who to contact in this regard please contact the address below.
Direct Marketing
We will keep you informed about the financial services we offer (or those
offered by our subsidiaries, joint venture partners and third parties for
which we act as agent) if we believe this information may be of interest to
you or if it may help us develop and improve our services to you.
However, we respect your wishes with regard to your privacy, so if you do
not wish to receive this information please contact us at the address below.
If we are not advised in this regard, we will assume that you consent to the
use of your personal information for this purpose.
We will however continue to send you information relating to the financial
services that you have selected - such as newsletters, statements, statement
inserts or offers to upgrade these services.
In circumstances, where you notify us of your preference not to receive direct
marketing material relating to products and services offered by Wide Bay acting
in its capacity as an agent for a third party (or where we receive advice
directly from the third party to whom we act as agent) we will cease sending
you information about the products and services offered by these third parties.
We will however continue to send you information relating to Wide Bay’s
own products and services - unless you advise us otherwise as above.
Identification Requirements
Generally it is not possible for us to do business with you unless we have
identified you, and in some cases, such as when you open an account with us,
the law requires that you identify yourself to us.
Wherever it is lawful and practicable to do so, we may offer you the opportunity
to deal with us anonymously.
We do not use Commonwealth identifiers (a Commonwealth Government or Commonwealth
Government agency designated identification number) as a means of identifying
the personal information that we may have collected about you.
We only use Commonwealth identifiers as a means by which you may prove your
identity to us or for purposes required by law (such as supplying your Tax
File Number to the Australian Taxation Office).
The Internet
The Internet has increased opportunities for us to provide you with information
and financial services and for you to provide us with personal information – in
particular through our website: www.widebayaust.com.au
Information logged: It is a necessary part of visiting any web site, including
www.widebayaust.com.au that your web browser provides the machine's identity
(its IP address) to the web server, so that the server can address the reply
to the correct machine.
In addition, when you visit our website, our server logs the following information
that is provided by your browser for statistical purposes only:
The type of browser and operating system you are using;
The date and time of your visit; and
The address of the pages accessed and the documents downloaded.
We use this information only for statistical analysis or systems administration
purposes. No attempt will be made to identify users or their browsing activities,
except in the event of an investigation where a law enforcement agency may
exercise a warrant.
Cookies: A cookie is a piece of information that an Internet web site sends
to your browser when you access information at that site. Our website does
not use cookies.
While we do not currently use cookies to allow us to identify your browser
while you are using our site, we may adopt this procedure in the future. Cookies
do not identify you, they simply allow us to track usage patterns so that
we can measure the level of interest in various areas of our site. All browsers
allow you to be notified when you receive a cookie and to elect to either
accept it or not. Your Internet service provider should be able to assist
you to set your preferences.
Provision of email addresses: We seek feedback from you in order to improve
the services we offer. We will only record your email address if you send
us a message or provide it in our "Find out More" response forms.
It will only be used for the purpose for which you have provided it and will
not be added to a mailing list without your consent. However, if you provide
your email address as a client of Wide Bay (including for internet banking
purposes) we may use this address to send you information about our services.
However, you can elect not to receive information from us by contacting the
address below (refer to Direct Marketing above). We will not use your email
address for any other purpose and will not disclose it without your consent.
Security of your personal information online: Generally email is not a secure
way to communicate therefore you should not send your personal information
to us via email unless you are using our Secure Messages within our "smartlink" Internet
Banking service or one of our secure online forms including our on-line loan
application facility on our Web site.
Secure pages are identified by a pad lock appearing at the bottom of the
browser window. This can also be confirmed by the prefix https:// in the address
bar of your browser window.
We maintain significant technology and procedures in respect to our online
transactions. These measures are continually updated to maintain this security
and are regularly audited by external experts.
Links to other sites: Our web site contains links to other sites. We are
not responsible for the content and the privacy practices of other web sites
and encourage you to examine each site's privacy policies.
Contact Us
Should you require more detailed information on the way in which we handle
information about you including the sort of personal information we hold,
the purposes for doing so, and how this information is collected, held, used
and disclosed, or should you be concerned about our treatment of your personal
information, please contact: (no stamp required)
The Privacy Officer,
Wide Bay Australia Ltd,
Reply Paid 1063, Bundaberg, Qld., 4670
or Telephone (07) 41 537777
E-mail: widebay@widebayaust.com.au
This information on our privacy policies is current 27th February 2003 but
may change. Our privacy policy may be reviewed from time to time in line with
changes in law, technology and market practice.