At Awesome Women In Construction (AWIC), we respect people’s privacy. Personal information refers to any information or any opinion, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, from which an individual’s identity is apparent, or can be reasonably ascertained. Sensitive information refers to information about a person’s:

• racial or ethnic origin,
• political opinions or associations,
• religious beliefs or affiliations,
• philosophical beliefs,
• trade and professional memberships,
• sexual preferences or practices,
• criminal record or
• health, genetric or bio-metric information.

Collecting sensitive information

We may need to collect sensitive information about you or others for dealings or in relation to proceedings.

Under the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), we are entitled to collect sensitive information about you or others for a number of reasons, including where the collection is reasonably necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal or equitable claim. Where we are required to and it is practicable to do so, we will seek your consent before collecting your sensitive information and inform you of the purpose at the time. Your consent to collection of your sensitive information may be implied in limited circumstances.

Use of personal information

We will use personal information:

• to identify individuals and protect them from unauthorised access to their personal information, accounts or services;
• to improve our services to you or others;
• to inform you or others of our marketing initiatives;
• to derive or aggregate anonymous information from which individuals cannot be identified;
• to prevent or lessen a threat to a person’s life or health;
• where disclosure is reasonably necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim;
• for the purpose for which it was collected, or for a related purpose (or a directly related purpose in the case of sensitive information);
• where the individual concerned would reasonably expect us to use the information;
• where reasonably required to provide legal services that we are instructed or obliged to provide; or
• for any other purpose, where an individual has consented to its use for that purpose.

Disclosure of information

Except where indicated above, we will not disclose personal information to a third party unless:

• the disclosure is for a primary purpose for which the information was collected;
• the individual concerned has consented to the disclosure;
• the third party is our agent or contractor, in which case we will require them to disclose and to use the personal information only for the purpose for which it was disclosed;
• there are reasonable grounds to believe that disclosure is necessary to prevent or lessen a threat to your life or health or that of another person;
• the disclosure is to a related body corporate;
• the disclosure is reasonably necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim; or
• the disclosure is permitted, required or authorised by or under law.

Information collected via our website and Apps

To ensure we are meeting the needs and requirements of our website users, and to develop our online services, we may collect aggregated information by using cookies.

Cookies are unique identification numbers like tags that are placed on the bowser of our website users. The cookies do not in themselves identify users personally but are linked back to a database record about them.

We may use cookies to track use of our website, and to compile statistics on visits to the site in an aggregated form and log anonymous information such as:

• the address of a user’s server;
• a user’s top level domain (such as .com or .au);
• the date and time of a user’s visit;
• the pages a user accessed and downloaded;
• the search engine a user used;
• the type of browser that was used.

When a user visits our site, a cookie may be placed on their device. Where a user has visited us before, the cookie may be reaching each time they re-visit the site.

We do not use this technology to access any other personal information of a user in our records and a user cannot be personally identified from a cookie.

If a user chooses not to have their browser accept cookies from our site, they are still able to view the content of our website on their device.

Marketing

We may use personal information to advise the individual concerned of new services and marketing initiatives that we think may be of interest to them. This may include newsletters, invitations to seminars or business functions, and general about the firm.

Those who prefer not to receive information about our services or seminars, can request to be removed from the relevant circulation list.

We do not disclose personal information to a third party to enable that party to direct market their products or services to you, unless individuals have expressly consented to that disclosure. We may require written confirmation of a request to be removed from our circulation list, for example where legislation requires us to provide particular communication to the individual concerned.

Security

The protection of personal information is a priority for us and we are committed to maintaining:

• safeguards to protect personal information against unauthorised use, disclosure, access, interference,
• modification, destruction, and accidental loss. All personal information we hold is dealt with in accordance with the APPS;
• industry standards for the security and protection of information. Personal information is stored securely and
• access is restricted to authorised personnel only. Our computer system requires passwords, and these are kept securely; and
• internal policies on personal information and staff training to ensure compliance with these policies. All our staff are required to read this policy and understand their obligations regarding personal information.

Changes to our policy

We may update or change this policy. When we do so, we will publish the current policy on our website.

Complaint resolution

We are committed to constantly improving our procedures so that personal information is treated appropriately.

If you feel that we have failed to deal with your personal information in accordance with the APPs or this policy, please speak to us so that we have an opportunity to resolve the issue to your satisfaction.

We will:

• listen to your concerns and grievances regarding our handling of personal information;
• discuss with you the ways in which we can remedy the situation; and
• put in place an action plan to resolve your complaint and improve our information handling procedures (if appropriate).
  If this process does not result in an outcome that is satisfactory to you, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s Office.

We will work together with the Information Commissioner’s Office to resolve the issues between us. The contact details for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s Office are as follows:

ADDRESS: GPO Box 521 8 SYDNEY NSW 2001
PHONE: 1300 363 992 (for the cost of a local call anywhere in Australia) FAX: 02 9284 9666
EMAIL: enquiries @oaic.gov.au
WEBSITE: www.oaic.gov.au

You can view further information about the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) at

http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy-act/Australian-privacy-principles