Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

This privacy policy applies to The Australian Pigeon Centre (The Group). In providing pigeon racing services to members/clients, we are committed to ensuring the privacy of everyone we deal with, and to providing you with the highest levels of customer service. This privacy policy sets out how we deal with personal information and credit information. It applies to information obtained through our websites and our business generally, but does not apply to any linked website which we do not operate.

The Group attaches great importance to safeguarding its customer information.

The Group has in place systems and processes that comply with the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act). Our systems and processes comply with the Australian Privacy Principles, which protect our customers and are the basis of the Privacy Act.

These principles state that data must be:

1. Fairly and lawfully processed;

2. Processed for limited purposes;

3. Adequate, relevant and not excessive;

4. Accurate;

5. Not kept for longer than is necessary;

6. processed in line with your rights;

7. Secure; and

8. Not transferred to countries without adequate protection.

The Group has also implemented processes to ensure compliance with Notifiable Data Breach obligations under the Privacy Act.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

The Group collects personal information (including bank account information) in the provision of our event and racing services to you, including the marketing of our racing services.

The types of personal information the Group collects and records may include:

• Your name and contact details;

• Banking/payment details (e.g. account numbers, credit card numbers);

• Your racing entry history with the Group;

• Correspondence to and from you such as emails and other forms of communication such as live chat;

• Information on your use of the Group websites and Apps using cookies and tracking technologies, or other behavioural marketing indicators;

• Your physical location;

• Information about your financial circumstances and source of income;

• Information we may collect as part of a survey, customer feedback request or a competition you participate in; and

If necessary, the Group may also ask you to provide additional personal information from time to time.

This is collected in a number of ways including:

• directly from you when you enter your personal details on our website/s to open a member account for login or update your details;

• from your use of our websites, apps or other websites;

• when you email or telephone us or engage in live chat; and

• from publicly available sources of information, including third parties from whom we may acquire lists.

The Group will tell you why we are collecting information when we collect it and how we plan to use it or these things will be obvious when we collect the information. If you choose not to provide us with information we may be unable to supply products or services to you.

USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

The Group usually collects personal information to:

 

1. Provide our products and services to you;

2. Identify you and to assist you to obtain the Group products and services you require;

3. Administer and manage these services including opening and the ongoing Member racing account;

4. Monitor and detect  possible fraud or breaches of our terms and conditions of service;

5. Process payments for our products and services;

6. Improve our products and services;

7. Conduct appropriate checks for fraud;

8. Conduct research and develop and improve our products and services;

9. Gain an understanding of your needs in order to provide you with better and more personalized products and services tailored to your requirements; and

10. Promote and market our products to you.

When the Group collects personal information from you, we will provide you with the opportunity to indicate that you do not want this disclosed for marketing or secondary purposes. You can contact our team at any time to notify of your requirements or preferences.

USE BY THIRD PARTIES

We may disclose your personal information to our Related Bodies Corporate, or other companies, organisations or sites with whom we have a relationship. Some of these sites may be co-branded with our logo, however, these sites are not operated or maintained by us on our behalf. These links are for the convenience of the user, however, we cannot accept responsibility for the content or practices of websites operated by third parties that are linked to our sites.

We may also disclose information to professional advisors, service providers, contractors and third parties who assist us in operating our business, for example to payment service providers, providers of our Card programs (including E Merchants and Stripe), companies that provide identification verification services (such as Green ID and Equifax) if required or provided by the Group, customer analytics providers, and organisations that we engage to deal with you on our behalf.

We may also disclose your information to a government agency, the police, a regulatory body, a court if requested or we are required to do so, or other organisations such as banks to verify compliance with our Terms and Conditions or the law. We may disclose your personal information overseas to organisations including our Related Bodies Corporate and contractors, including providers of payment services, in other countries which relate to our Group.

ACCESS BY REGULATORY BODIES

In accordance with any Regulatory rules the Group may have other obligations in various government jurisdictions, racing entry fee transactions conducted over the internet and the telephone (including but not limited to telephone calls, as well as transactions to and from an individual's computer) may be observed and recorded by us and by the relevant regulatory, racing or sporting body. Additionally these bodies may be granted access to review personal information collected by us for reasons including but not limited to ensuring the integrity of the racing or other events offered by the Group.

DVS

For the purposes of verifying your identification using the Document Verification Service you confirm that you are authorised to provide the details that you provide to us during the membership sign-up and identity verification process. This information is sought and used for the purpose of undertaking an information match request in relation to relevant Official Record Holder information and that a corresponding information match result will be provided via the use of third party systems. You acknowledge and consent to the use and access of your information in this way.

SECURITY AND STORAGE

The Group may store customer information (including personal information and credit information) in a variety of formats, including electronic or paper formats.

The Group takes reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is stored securely. Transmissions sent to or from our website/s are routinely monitored for quality control and systems administration. The Group cannot guarantee the total security of any data transmission over the Internet, however, we strive to protect your personal information to the extent possible. A variety of physical and electronic methods are used, including restricting access to offices, databases and firewalls to keep personal information secure from misuse, loss or unauthorised use. Amongst the most important information the Group collects, is bank account and credit card information. The Group endeavours at all times to minimize the risk of unauthorised use of this type of information.

CHILDREN'S PRIVACY

The Group takes our responsibility to protect children from the social impact of racing which maybe seen as a form of gambling seriously, until they are legally able to make such decisions. The Group will not accept information from minors for the purpose of opening a member account. It is however, ultimately the responsibility of the parents or guardian/s to monitor their children's Internet activities and, if desired, to use appropriate screening software.

ACCESS TO AND CORRECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

You have the right to access most personal information the Group holds about you, and if we deny access in certain circumstances, we will tell you why. If you would like to do so, please let us know by sending an email to the Group. We will provide you with a copy of your personal information within a reasonable period after the request is made, usually within 30 days. In some cases, we may charge a reasonable fee to provide access to your personal information, but we will never charge you a fee to make a request. If a fee will apply, we will advise you before we provide access, so you can accept or decline the fee.

If you would like to make a correction to any personal information the Group holds about you, please let us know by sending an email to the Group.

If there is a reason for not granting you access to your information, or making a correction to any personal information, we will provide you with a written explanation of the reasons for the refusal (unless unreasonable to do so) and inform you of the mechanisms to complain about the refusal.

PUBLIC INFORMATION

Information posted on bulletin boards or communicated within a chat room becomes public information. The Group cannot guarantee the security of this type of disclosed information.

COOKIES

A "cookie" is a small data file that a website may write to your hard drive when you visit it. A cookie file can contain information, such as user ID that the website uses to track the pages you have visited. The only personal information a cookie can contain is information you personally supply. A cookie cannot read data off your hard drive or read cookie files created by other websites. You can control the use of this data by setting your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, giving you the opportunity to accept or reject it.

WHAT ELSE SHOULD YOU KNOW?

Remember to logout and close your browser when you have finished your user session. This is particularly necessary if you share a computer with someone else, or you access a computer in a public place.

You, as an individual, are responsible for the security of, and access to, your own computer. Ultimately, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your username, password and account information. Please exercise extreme care when you are using the Internet and our website/s.

UNSUBSCRIBE

In order to communicate important account and promotional information, you will receive e-mail and possibly hard mail from us. Should you not wish to receive communications of this nature, please e-mail the Group to indicate your communication preferences.

FURTHER INFORMATION AND COMPLAINTS

For further information, or if you would like to make a complaint about our use or disclosure of your personal information, please contact the Group via email. Following receipt of your complaint, we will investigate and respond to you within a reasonable period of time.

If you would like more information about the Privacy Act or Australian privacy requirements in general, please visit the Office of the Information Commissioner’s website at www.oaic.gov.au.