PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy describes how your personal information is collected, used, and shared when you visit or make a purchase from https://www.econsultaccounting.com.au (the “Site”).

1.  INTRODUCTION  

1.1       The EConsult Accounting Firm (EConsult Accounting ABN 32 839 360 784) provides accounting and advisory services (Services). We are not subject to the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) but we do handle personal and credit information. This policy has been developed to ensure that our credit information is handled appropriately.

1.2       We are committed to complying with the Privacy Act in relation to all credit information we collect. Our commitment is demonstrated in this policy.

1.3       The privacy of your personal information is also important to us, and we have safeguards in place to manage that information.

Who does the policy apply to?        

1.4       This policy applies to any person for whom we currently hold, or might in the future collect, credit information and any personal information collected from the Site.

What information does the policy apply to?         

1.5       This policy applies to ‘credit information’ and ‘credit eligibility information’. 

1.6       This policy applies to any personal information we may collect.

2.   WHAT KINDS OF CREDIT INFORMATION MIGHT WE COLLECT?    

2.1       In our capacity as a credit provider, we will only collect your identification information and payments details.

2.2       However, in the course of providing the Services for you, we might collect and hold the following kinds of credit information, if it is necessary to provide you with the Services:

            information about any credit that has been provided to you;

            your repayment history;

            information about your overdue payments;

            if terms and conditions of your credit arrangements are varied;

            if any court proceedings are initiated against you in relation to your credit activities;

            information about any bankruptcy or debt agreements involving you;

            any publicly available information about your credit worthiness; and

            any information about you where you might have fraudulently or otherwise committed a serious credit infringement.

2.3       We may also collect personal information which may affect your credit worthiness from other credit providers (e.g. banks) that collect that information from credit reporting bodies. The kinds of personal information we collect may include:

            contact and identity information;

            financial information;

            date and place of birth; and

            credit history information.

3.   HOW AND WHEN DO WE COLLECT CREDIT INFORMATION?          

3.1       In most cases, we will only collect credit information about you if you disclose it to us and it is relevant in providing you with the Services.

3.2       Other sources we might collect credit information from include:

            government bodies (for example, the Australian Taxation Office or the Australian Securities and Investment Commission);

            banks and other credit providers;

            our debt collection agency;

            your suppliers and creditors;

            other advisors or consultants (such as your solicitors).

3.3       We generally do not collect and hold credit information from credit reporting bodies unless it is incidentally collected in providing the Services for you, however we do engage a debt collection agency that might collect credit information from credit reporting bodies.

4.   HOW DO WE STORE AND HOLD THE CREDIT INFORMATION?       

4.1       Our usual approach to holding credit information includes:

            physically:

            at our premises (securely); and

            off-site, by third party physical storage providers (securely);

            electronically:

            on secure online servers; and

            by a third party storage provider.

4.2       We secure the credit information we hold in numerous ways, including:

            using access codes to access areas that contain credit information;

            using secure servers to store credit information; and

            using unique usernames, passwords and other protections on systems that can access credit information.

4.3       If we have no reason to hold your credit information, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify the information is a safe and secure manner (subject to our professional obligations).

5.  WHY DO WE COLLECT THE CREDIT INFORMATION?

5.1       Our usual purpose for collecting, holding, using and disclosing credit information about you is to enable us to provide you with the Services.

5.2       We might also collect the credit information to process payments relating to our Services.

6.   OVERSEAS DISCLOSURE OF THE CREDIT INFORMATION    

6.1       We will not disclose your credit information to entities without an Australian link unless you expressly request us to.

7.   HOW CAN YOU MAKE COMPLAINTS AND ACCESS AND CORRECT YOUR CREDIT INFORMATION?        

7.1       It is important that the information we hold about you is up-to-date. You should contact us if your credit information changes.

Access to information and correcting credit information

7.1       You may request access to the credit information held by us or ask us for your credit information to be corrected by using the contact details in this section.

7.2       We will grant you access to your credit information as soon as possible, subject to the request circumstances and our professional obligations.

7.3       In keeping with our commitment to protect the privacy of credit information, we may not disclose credit information to you without proof of identity.

7.4       We may deny access to credit information if:

            the request is unreasonable;

            providing access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of another person;

            providing access would pose a serious and imminent threat to the life or health of any person;

            providing access would compromise our professional obligations; or

            there are other legal grounds to deny the request.

7.5       We may charge a fee for reasonable costs incurred in responding to an access request. The fee (if any) will be disclosed prior to it being levied.

7.6       If the credit information that we hold is not accurate, complete and up-to-date, we will take reasonable steps to correct it so that it is accurate, complete and up-to-date, where it is appropriate to do so.

Complaints    

7.7       If you wish to complain about an interference with your privacy, then you must follow the following process:

            The complaint must be firstly made to us in writing, using the contact details in this section. We will have a reasonable time to respond to the complaint.

            In the unlikely event the issue cannot be resolved, you may take your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Who to contact         

7.8       You can complain or request to access or correct credit information we hold about you by using the contact details below. Any complaints must be made in writing:

            Privacy Officer: Courtney Barbin   

            Postal Address: 9 Donaghy Court, Middle Ridge

            Telephone number: 0448304641

            Email address: courtney@econsultaccounting.com

8. PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

8.1       When you visit the Site, we automatically collect certain information about your device, including information about your web browser, IP address, time zone, and some of the cookies that are installed on your device. Additionally, as you browse the Site, we collect information about the individual web pages or products that you view, what websites or search terms referred you to the Site, and information about how you interact with the Site. We refer to this automatically-collected information as “Device Information.”

8.2       We collect Device Information using the following technologies:

    - “Cookies” are data files that are placed on your device or computer and often include an anonymous unique identifier. For more information about cookies, and how to disable cookies, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org.

    - “Log files” track actions occurring on the Site, and collect data including your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, referring/exit pages, and date/time stamps.

    - “Web beacons,” “tags,” and “pixels” are electronic files used to record information about how you browse the Site.

8.3       Additionally when you make a purchase or attempt to make a purchase through the Site, we collect certain information from you, including your name, billing address, shipping address, payment information (including credit card numbers, paypal, afterpay, debit numbers), email address, and phone number.  We refer to this information as “Order Information.” We collect purchased marketing data/lists.

8.4       When we talk about “Personal Information” in this Privacy Policy, we are talking both about Device Information and Order Information.

9. HOW DO WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

9.1       We use the Order Information that we collect generally to fulfill any orders placed through the Site (including processing your payment information, arranging for shipping, and providing you with invoices and/or order confirmations).  Additionally, we use this Order Information to:

Communicate with you;

Screen our orders for potential risk or fraud; and

When in line with the preferences you have shared with us, provide you with information or advertising relating to our products or services.

9.2       We use the Device Information that we collect to help us screen for potential risk and fraud (in particular, your IP address), and more generally to improve and optimize our Site (for example, by generating analytics about how our customers browse and interact with the Site, and to assess the success of our marketing and advertising campaigns).

10. SHARING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

10.1    We only share your Personal Information with third parties to help us use your Personal Information, as described above.  For example, we use Wix & Shopify to power our online store--you can read more about how Shopify uses your Personal Information here:  https://www.shopify.com/legal/privacy.  We also use Google Analytics to help us understand how our customers use the Site--you can read more about how Google uses your Personal Information here:  https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/.  You can also opt-out of Google Analytics here:  https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

10.2    Finally, we may also share your Personal Information to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other lawful request for information we receive, or to otherwise protect our rights.

10.3    As described above, we use your Personal Information to provide you with targeted advertisements or marketing communications we believe may be of interest to you.  For more information about how targeted advertising works, you can visit the Network Advertising Initiative’s (“NAI”) educational page at http://www.networkadvertising.org/understanding-online-advertising/how-does-it-work.

You can opt out of targeted advertising by:

FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=ads

            GOOGLE - https://www.google.com/settings/ads/anonymous

            BING - https://advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/enus/resources/policies/personalized-ads

Additionally, you can opt out of some of these services by visiting the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out portal at:  http://optout.aboutads.info/.

10.4    DO NOT TRACK

Please note that we do not alter our Site’s data collection and use practices when we see a Do Not Track signal from your browser.

11. YOUR RIGHTS

11.1    If you are a European resident, you have the right to access personal information we hold about you and to ask that your personal information be corrected, updated, or deleted. If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us through the contact information below. Additionally, if you are a European resident we note that we are processing your information in order to fulfill contracts we might have with you (for example if you make an order through the Site), or otherwise to pursue our legitimate business interests listed above.  Additionally, please note that your information will be transferred outside of Europe, including to Canada and the United States.

12. DATA RETENTION

12.1    When you place an order through the Site, we will maintain your Order Information for our records unless and until you ask us to delete this information.

13. MINORS

13.1    The Site is not intended for individuals under the age of eighteen (18).

14.   CHANGES TO THE POLICY      

14.1    We may update, modify or remove this policy at any time without prior notice. This may be modified to in order to reflect, for example, changes to our practices or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons. Any changes to the policy will be published on our website.

14.2    This policy is effective from May 2019. If you have any comments on the policy, please contact the privacy officer with the contact details in section 7.8 of this policy.

CONTACT US

For more information about our privacy practices, if you have questions, or if you would like to make a complaint, please contact us by e-mail at hello@econsultaccounting.com or by mail using the details provided below:

  9 Donaghy Court, Middle Ridge, QLD, 4350, Australia

Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.