PRIVACY POLICY

At David O’Brien and Associates ABN 28 557 702 631, we are committed to protecting your privacy in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). This Privacy Policy describes our current policies and practices in relation to the handling and use of personal information (excluding personal information that is exempt under the Act, e.g. employee records).

What information do we collect and how do we use it?

We will ask you for personal information when we are engaged to provide services (e.g. to you or your employer), to assist you with finance or for related other purposes. Personal information may include any sensitive information (including health information) and may include any information you tell us about any vulnerability you may have. We use the information you provide to provide services to you and/or advise about and assist with your credit needs. In the context of assisting with your finance, we only provide your information to the companies with whom you choose to deal (and their representatives).

We also use your information to send you requested product information and to enable us to manage your ongoing relationship with us (e.g. for invoicing, client surveys etc). We may do so by mail or electronically unless you tell us that you do not wish to receive electronic communications.

We may occasionally notify you about promotions, new services and special offers, events or articles we think will be of interest to you. We may send you regular updates by email or by post. If you would rather not receive this information, please email or write to us to let us know.

We may also use your information internally to help us improve our services and help resolve any problems.

What if you don’t provide some information to us?

If you don’t provide us with full information, we can’t properly advise or assist you.

How do we hold and protect your information?

We strive to maintain the reliability, accuracy, completeness, and currency of the personal information we hold and to protect its privacy and security. We keep personal information only for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected or to comply with any applicable legal or ethical reporting or document retention requirements

We hold the information we collect from you in hard copy and/or electronic formats.

To ensure your information is safe, we take security measures to protect the personal information we hold including physical (e.g. security monitored and locked/secured office, storage of files in lockable cabinets) and technological (e.g. restriction of access, firewalls, the use of encryption, passwords and digital certificates). In some cases, David O’Brien and Associates engages third parties to host electronic data (including data in relation to the services we provide) on our behalf.

Will we disclose the information we collect to anyone?

We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to others.

As part of an engagement, if you are a customer, an employee, a contractor or supplier of services to one of our clients, then we may disclose your personal information as part of providing services to that client. The types of third parties to whom we may disclose your personal information include:
• experts or other third parties contracted as part of an engagement
• our agents, third party contractors and suppliers
• our professional advisers
• government or regulatory bodies or agencies, as part of an engagement or otherwise (e.g. the Australian Taxation Office)
• our credit licensee (e.g. for administration and supervision activities)
• contractors who supply services to us (e.g. to handle mailings on our behalf)
• other companies in the event of a corporate sale, merger, re-organisation, dissolution or similar event, however, we will do our best to ensure that they protect your information in the same way that we do.

We may also provide your information to others if we are required to do so by law or under some unusual other circumstances which the Privacy Act permits.

Privacy on our website

Automatic collection of personal information

Cookies and other technologies are used by David O’Brien and Associates and its service providers on some David O’Brien and Associates websites and through email to automatically collect certain types of information. The collection of this information allows us to improve the effectiveness of Lambourne Partners online environment and to measure the effectiveness of our marketing activities.

If you register on the David O’Brien and Associates web site and provide information about yourself, we will use your information to personalise your experiences with David O’Brien and Associates (through marketing and communications). If you access the David O’Brien and Associates web site (or other social media account) using a third party account (such as LinkedIn, Google or Twitter), we may collect any information you have permitted the third party service to share (i.e. your name and email address, depending on the privacy settings you have selected with the third party provider and their privacy policy).

IP address

Public IP addresses from which visitors to the David O’Brien and Associates website and social media accounts may be used to conduct web site trend and performance analysis.

Cookies may be placed on your computer or internet-enabled device whenever you visit the David O’Brien and Associates website and social media accounts. This allows the site to remember your computer or device and serves a number of purposes.

Cookies by themselves do not tell us you’re your identity (i.e. email address or personal information). However, we may use the details collected from cookies (i.e. IP addresses), for the purpose of trend analysis (i.e. number of visitors to our web sites and their geographic location).

Analytics Tools

David O’Brien and Associates uses analytics tools (such as Google Analytics) to provide details about visitors to our website. Users can make choices on how their data is collected by Google Analytics through their Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on (the add-on indicates to Google Analytics that information about the visit should not be provided by Google Analytics). It is noted that the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on does not prevent information from being sent to the website itself or to other web analytics services.

More information about how Google Analytics is used can be found at https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html

Social media

Some David O’Brien and Associates websites and services may enable information gathering and sharing through third party social media applications (i.e. Facebook Like button).

These social media applications may collect and use information regarding your use of the David O’Brien and Associates websites and social media pages. Any personal information that you provide via such social media applications may be collected and used by those social media applications whom are separate to David O’Brien and Associates.

Such interactions that are monitored by social media applications are governed by the privacy policies of the relevant companies that provide the applications. We do not have control over, or responsibility for, those companies or their use of your information.

In addition, David O’Brien and Associates may host blogs and forums. The purpose of these media sources are to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and content across David O’Brien and Associates network. Any personal information that you provide on these blogs and forums may be shared with other users of that social media platform, outside of David O’Brien and Associates control, unless otherwise stated at the point of providing the information.

Location-based tools

David O’Brien and Associates may collect and use the geographical location of your computer or mobile device. This data is collected for the purpose of analysing the visitors to our website and social media accounts.

Third party websites

David O’Brien and Associates websites contains links to third party websites. Those other websites are not subject to our privacy policy and procedures and the users will need to review the privacy policy of those third party websites.

David O’Brien and Associates does not take any responsibility for the collection and control of the private information supplied to third party websites.

Unless expressly advised, David O’Brien and Associates does not endorse or approve the services or products provided on any third party website.

Subscriptions

You are not required to provide any personal information when visiting the David O’Brien and Associates websites. However, if you subscribe to receive information our updates or request us to contact you, provision of certain personal information will be required to facilitate these requests.

How can you check, update or change the information we are holding?

Upon receipt of your written request and enough information to allow us to identify the information, we will disclose to you the personal information we hold about you. We will also correct, amend or delete any personal information that we agree is inaccurate.

If you wish to access or correct your personal information, please write to the David O’Brien and Associates Privacy Officer at the following address:

Privacy Officer
David O’Brien and Associates
Suite 5 Macquarie Court
180Main Road
SPEERS POINT NSW 2284

Or you can contact via email to the Privacy Officer at email@davidobrien.com.au. We do not charge for receiving a request for access to personal information or for complying with a correction request and we do not charge for providing access to personal information.

Your consent

By asking us to provide any services to you or to assist with your credit needs, you consent to the collection and use of the information you have provided to us for the purposes described above.

Tell us what you think

We welcome your questions and comments about privacy. If you have any concerns or complaints, please contact the David O’Brien and Associates Privacy Officer using the above contact details.

Complaints

Internal Dispute Resolution

If you do have a complaint, please let us know by email, because if we don’t know about it we can’t fix it. You may also contact us by email addressed to the Complaints Officer at email@davidobrien.com.au. Please make sure you include as much information as you can.

You should explain the details of your complaint as clearly as you can. You must do this in writing. When we receive a complaint, we will attempt to resolve it promptly.
In some circumstances, David O’Brien and Associates may decline to investigate the complaint (e.g. if the complaint relates to an act or practice that is not an interference with the privacy of the person making the complaint).

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint, you can refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.