Our management and staff are aware of the importance of protecting the privacy of individuals who come in contact with us.
We are committed to ensuring the privacy of the personal information we collect in the course of our business. We believe that respect for your privacy forms part of the ongoing trust we wish to develop with you.
We are bound by the 13 Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). The Australian Privacy Principles set out the way in which organisations can collect, use, keep secure and disclose personal and sensitive information. It also gives individuals the right to know what information an organisation holds about them and the right to correct that information if it is wrong. Further information on the Australian Privacy law is available from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (www.oaic.gov.au).
The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to tell you what kinds of information we may gather or hold about you, how we may use that information, whether we disclose it to anyone, the choices you have regarding our use of that information, and your ability to access or correct that information.
The BGC Group (referred to as the BGC, we, us or our) is a leading privately owned Western Australian Group of Companies with interests in residential and commercial construction, manufacturing, mining, civil engineering works and property investment. The BGC Group includes BGC (Australia) Pty Ltd, Esther Investment Pty Ltd, BGC Insurance and each of their related bodies corporate and internal divisions.
'Personal information' is information or an opinion whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion.
The personal information we may collect and hold varies and is dependent on the product requested or the service to be provided. Details can include but are not limited to:
The above information is collected and recorded about individuals who interact with us such as:
In most cases, if we do not collect the information we require, then we may be unable to undertake certain activities, such as providing you with the requested information, goods and/or services.
The Privacy Act provides an exemption for employee records. That is information about an individual if that information directly relates to the act or practice of a current or former employment relationship between the employer and the individual. That exemption may apply to BGC in relation to the information held by BGC about its employees. Please contact the Privacy Officer for more details.
Generally, when providing goods and services to our clients or obtaining goods and services from our suppliers or contractors, we collect personal information directly from the individuals where reasonable and practical.
We may collect personal information directly from you when you:
We may also collect information about you from other sources such as:
We will only collect your personal information from third parties if it is unreasonable or impractical to collect the necessary information directly from you or if we are otherwise permitted to do so.
The Privacy Act describes 'sensitive information' as information relating to a person's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion, trade union or other professional or trade association membership, sexual orientation, criminal record, and health information about an individual.
Occasionally it may be necessary for us to collect sensitive information about you (such as health information, racial origins and criminal records). If you or third parties provide us with sensitive information, we will as a matter of policy only use and disclose the information for the purpose for which it was provided or another directly related purpose, unless you agree otherwise, or where required by law.
Where practical and reasonable, we will only collect sensitive information with your consent.
BGC is committed to providing quality customer service to our internal and external clients and to operate its businesses within statutory requirements and comply with its legal obligations.
We collect and hold personal information in order to operate our businesses efficiently as well as to provide and market our products and/or services for the benefit of our customers.
We collect, hold and use your personal Information:
Depending on the product or service we are providing to you, we may disclose your personal information to our related entities, third parties where it is necessary to enable us to provide a product or service or to other third parties (such as your referee in connection with a job application you have submitted). We may disclose your personal information to third parties for the purposes set out above.
We may disclose your personal information to:
To manage and provide cost effective services, we outsource various administrative functions to third parties that provide mailing services, invoice and statement printing services, archiving functions, marketing services, and other services and functions as deemed necessary by management from time to time. We may also disclose your personal information to our website host or software application providers in certain limited circumstances, for example when our website experiences a technical problem or to ensure that it operates in an effective and secure manner.
Organisations providing professional services to us are required to keep those dealings and personal information provided by us as confidential unless required to disclose such information by statute or law.
In general we do not send your personal information to any overseas recipient. However, we, or one of our third party providers may disclose your personal information to overseas recipients including insurers, IT service providers, auditors and medical providers if:
As at March 2014, some divisions of the BGC Group disclose personal and sensitive information to Singapore due to their IT servers being located in that country.
We do not otherwise disclose your personal information without your permission, unless the disclosure is:
You consent to us using your personal information for sending you information, including promotional material, about us or our products and services, as well as the products and services of our related entities and third parties, now and in the future. You also consent to us sending you such information by means of mail, email, SMS and MMS messages. You can contact us using the contact details specified in Enquiries if you do not want to receive marketing information from us.
We take reasonable steps to protect the security of your personal information by ensuring it is protected from misuse, loss, interference and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
Our personnel are required to respect the confidentiality of your personal information and the privacy of individuals. We maintain strict standards and security procedures to prevent unauthorised access to the personal information whether it is in an electronic or paper format, and to ensure the correct use of this information. Personal information is stored in a central database that is password protected with access available only to authorised persons (such as BGC employees or our external database administrator) or otherwise your personal information is securely held within BGC's offices and only available to authorised persons.
Where we no longer require your personal information we will take reasonable steps to delete, de-identify or destroy all record of the information held.
You are entitled to access the personal information that we hold about you. Upon written request, we will provide access to your personal information, except in circumstances where there are legal or administrative reasons to deny access. If we refuse your request to access your personal information, we will provide you with reasons for our refusal. For example, if the information requested relates to an insurance claim, we may refuse access if the information has been provided by third parties during an investigation.
We will require you to verify your identity and to specify what information you require. We may charge a reasonable fee depending on the complexity of the request to cover costs in retrieving, coping and supplying the information to you.
If you establish that the personal information we hold about you is not accurate, complete and up to date, we will take reasonable steps to correct the information so that it is accurate, complete and up to date. If we cannot take reasonable steps to correct the information due to such correction is not technically possible or would be impracticable for us to perform, we may be unable to continue to provide services to you. In these cases, we will provide reasons for denial of correction.
To request access or to correct your information, please contact our Privacy Officer.
If you feel that we have not respected your privacy or that we have conducted ourselves inconsistently with this Privacy Policy, please contact our Privacy Officer and advise us as soon as possible. We will investigate your queries and complaints within a reasonable time frame depending on the complexity of the complaint.
If you feel that we have not satisfactorily addressed your complaint, you may also make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by visiting www.oaic.gov.au or by writing to GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001 or GPO Box 2999 Canberra ACT 2601.
All complaints should be made in writing detailing relevant information pertaining to the complaint and those parties involved in the alleged breach.
We may from time to time, update this Privacy Policy including to take into account new laws, regulations and technology. All the personal information we hold will be governed by our most recent Privacy Policy located at www.bgc.com.au. Any changes to the Privacy Policy will be advised to you by updating this page on our website. We encourage you to check this page from time to time for any changes.
If you have any concerns or queries about our Privacy Policy, or if you would like more information about privacy-related issues please contact our Privacy Officer at:
| E-mail address: | |
| Mailing Address: | The Privacy Officer BGC Privacy Services P.O. Box 1408 Canning Vale WA 6970, Australia |
| Facsimile Number: | +61 8 93344954 |
This policy was last updated on 12 March 2014. If you have any general comments on this policy, please feel free to contact our Privacy Officer.