When it comes to your privacy, we don’t mess about. By law we must comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the National Privacy Principles, which set out standards and rules for the use, collection, disclosure and access of your personal information, which is information that can be used to identify you, such as your name or any information attached to your name.
We can only collect personal information that relates to our business activities and is in accordance with the law. We’ll always let you know the purpose for collecting your information before or at the time we collect it, except where that’s not practical, such as when we receive an unsolicited email from an enquiring customer.
In order to provide our products and services to you, we’ll collect your name, address, date of birth, telephone numbers and email address. Other personal information used for identification purposes such as your license, passport or Medicare numbers may be collected, but we won’t use this information to identify you in our own system.
We are very careful with your details and always take all reasonable steps to make sure the information we collect is accurate, complete and up-to-date.
If you want to talk about our privacy management practice or make a complaint, that’s totally fine. We take privacy so seriously that we have a designated Privacy Officer who you can speak to by calling 133 298. We also have a complaint handling procedure to make sure we take care of your issue as quickly and efficiently as possible. Please feel free to take a read of this on our website.
If you don’t want us to use, collect, disclose or access your personal information, please let us know at the time we request it or at any time. The best person to speak to is our Privacy Officer who you can call on 133 298.
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You’ll see it’s all above board. Below are the reasons we collect personal information from you:
- To supply you with our products and services;
- To provide you with information about our products and services;
- To confirm the identity of a person prior to answering customer service or account management issues;
- To allow you to take part in promotions, surveys or competitions that we conduct from time to time; or
- To confirm your eligibility to receive government rebates and concessions.
How do we use your personal information?
It’s pretty straightforward really. We will only use your personal information to supply you with our products, services or information, or for a related purpose, (except in the case of sensitive information, where it will be a directly related purpose) to the extent permitted by law.
In order to be able to provide you with our products and services, we may share your personal information, to the extent that is necessary for us to provide you with our products and services, with:
- Network operators that we work with to supply energy to you;
- Service providers that assist in providing our products and services to you, including organisations that assist with credit checks, meter reading, billing, customer service, debt collection, technology and security services;
- Professional advisers including lawyers, marketers, business advisers and auditors;
- Credit-reporting and fraud-checking agencies; or
- Other contractors that assist us in providing our products and services to you.
We may also disclose personal information to a related body corporate or as required by law.
We’ll always try to gain your consent to use your personal information (other than sensitive information) for direct marketing relating to our products and services. Where that’s not practical, and where you’ve not previously indicated that you don’t want to receive direct marketing materials, we will only send them to you:
- Where we do not charge you to opt out of receiving direct marketing materials;
- Where we prominently advise you of your right to opt out from further direct marketing; and
- where we provide our contact details.
Your personal information is safe with us
We are highly protective of your personal information. All our employees, contractors, service providers and advisers are contractually obliged to respect the privacy of your personal information. Where your personal information is stored electronically to protect this information we will use secure servers, encryption of electronically transmitted data and disaster recovery procedures. Hard copy personal information will be kept secured in restricted areas.
Want to check or update your information?
If you want to know what information we hold about you or think the information about you might not be accurate, please give us a call on 133 298. We’ll do our best but please understand that in certain circumstances the law may require us to limit your access to your personal information.
You always have options
We will not collect personal information about any individual website user except with an individual’s consent. For example, when you register on our website in order to receive information or advice, we may ask you for personal information. We just want you to know that you always have the option not to provide the information we request. Unfortunately if you choose not to provide us with relevant information, it may mean that you are unable to access certain options and services online. In this case please give us a call and we’ll have a chat about it.
Cookies
A cookie is a data file that certain websites write to your computer’s hard drive. A cookie can contain information, such as a user identification code, that the site uses to track the pages you have visited. We use cookies solely to track user traffic patterns throughout our website and to allow access to certain sections of the site. We use this data on an anonymous basis and we do not correlate this data with the personal information of any user. Most website browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually change your browser settings to display a warning before accepting a cookie, or to refuse all cookies. We just need to let you know that if you choose to disable the receipt of cookies from our website, you may not be able to use certain features of the site.
Hyperlinks
Where our website contains hyperlinks to other websites, we do not warrant or make any representations in relation to the privacy policies or practices of the operators of those sites.
Transferring personal information overseas
Here’s the low-down. We may send your personal information overseas for the purposes set out in this policy in the following circumstances:
- to comply with our contractual obligations to you or a third party (the contract being in your interest);
- where the overseas organisation receiving the personal information is required to handle that information in a manner substantially similar to that set out under the National Privacy Principles or does so under a binding contract with us that requires their compliance with the National Privacy Principles;
- you have consented to the transfer; or
- the transfer is for your benefit and it’s impractical to seek your consent, where your consent is likely to be given.
As per usual, we’ll take very good care of your details. Whenever we send personal information overseas in this manner we will continue to comply with all Australian legal requirements in relation to its use and storage and local legal requirements if they are more onerous.
We like to keep our policies up to date and relevant, so from time to time we may update this policy. You can always download the latest version from our website or request one by contacting us on the details set out below.
Mail: Australian Power & Gas Company Limited – Privacy Officer
Locked Bag 5004
Royal Exchange NSW 1225
Phone: 133 298
Email: privacy@australianpowerandgas.com.au
Office of the Privacy Commissioner www.privacy.gov.au