Overview
Welcome to Refinance.com.au’s Privacy Policy. Your privacy is very important
to us. You must read and agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy before giving
any information to Refinance.com.au . As part of the normal operation of our services
we collect, use and, in some cases, disclose information about you to third parties.
This Privacy Policy governs the information we collect about you and your use of
information we provide to you. By accepting this Privacy Policy you expressly consent
to our use and disclosure of your personal information in the manner prescribed
in this Privacy Policy.
The privacy practices of this notice apply to the website located at http://www.refinance.com.au (collectively
the "Site"). Our parent and our subsidiaries and joint venture partners
operate under similar privacy practices as described in this Privacy Policy and,
subject to the requirements of applicable law and, in the case of Australia, the
requirements of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), (as amended by the private sector provisions
which came into effect on 21 December 2001) (the "Privacy Act"), we strive
to provide a consistent set of privacy practices throughout Refinance.com.au.
Questions regarding this statement should be directed to Refinance.com.au by sending
email to privacy@refinance.com.au or
contact us. Also, you may wish to refer to the Office of the Federal Privacy
Commissioner which may be contacted at the following site:
http://www.privacy.gov.au for more information on the Privacy Act.
Information We Collect
Our primary purpose in collecting personal information is to provide you with a smooth,
efficient, safer and customised experience. This allows us to provide services and
features that most likely meet your needs, and to customise our services to make
your experience safer and easier. We only collect personal information about you
that we consider necessary for this purpose and to achieve this goal.
If you sign-up to use our services, you will need to register using our online registration
form, where you will be required to provide us with your contact information and
other personal information.
We may automatically track certain information about you based upon your behaviour
on our Site. We may use this information to do internal research on our users' demographics,
interests, and behaviour to better understand and serve you and our community. This
information is compiled and analysed on an aggregated basis. This information may
include the URL that you just came from (whether this URL is on our Site or not),
which URL you next go to (whether this URL is on our Site or not), what browser
you are using, and your IP address.
We use data collection devices such as "cookies" on certain pages of our
Site. "Cookies" are small files placed on your hard drive that assist
us in providing customised services. We also offer certain features that are only
available through the use of a "cookie". We also use "cookies"
to allow you to enter your password less frequently during a session. Cookies can
also help us provide information which is targeted to your interests. Cookies are
stored on your hard drive, not on our Site. Most cookies are "session cookies,"
meaning that they are automatically deleted at the end of a session. You are always
free to decline our cookies if your browser permits, although in that case you may
not be able to use certain features on our Site and you may be required to reenter
your password more frequently during a session.
If you establish a credit account with us to pay any fees we charge, we collect some
additional necessary information, including billing address, credit card number
and credit card expiration date and tracking information from cheques or money orders.
If you send us personal correspondence, such as emails or letters, or if other users
or third parties send us correspondence about your activities or postings on the
Site, we may collect such information into a file specific to you.
Our Use of Your Information
We use personal information about you (including but not limited to the information
in the file we maintain about you, and other information we obtain from your current
and past activities on the Site) to resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, and
enforce our disclaimer.
You agree that we may use personal information about you to improve our marketing
and promotional efforts, to analyse site usage, to improve our content and product
offerings and customise our Site's content, layout, and services. These uses improve
our Site and better tailor it to meet your needs, so as to provide you with a smooth,
efficient, safer and customised experience while using our services.
You agree that we may use your information to contact you and deliver information
to you that, in some cases, is targeted to your interests, such as targeted banners,
administrative notices, product offerings, and communications relevant to your use
of the Site. By accepting the
disclaimer and Privacy Policy you expressly agree to receive this information.
If you do not wish to receive these communications, we encourage you to opt-out
of the receipt of certain communications.
Our Disclosure of Your Information
Although Refinance.com.au uses industry standard practices to protect your personal
information, due to technical limitations, we cannot ensure that all of your private
communications and other personal information will never be disclosed in ways not
otherwise described in this Privacy Policy. By way of example (without limiting
the foregoing), we may be forced to disclose information to the government or third
parties under certain circumstances, or third parties may unlawfully intercept or
access transmissions or private communications. Therefore, although we use industry
standard practices to protect your privacy, we cannot and do not guarantee, and
you should not expect, that your personal information or private communications
will always remain private.
As a matter of policy, we do not sell or rent any personal information about
you to any third party. However, the following describes some of the ways
that your personal information may be disclosed, and by agreeing to the disclaimer and Privacy Policy you
expressly agree that your personal information may be disclosed by Refinance.com.au
in the following ways:
Advertisers. We aggregate (gather up data
across all users) personal information and disclose such information in a non-personally
identifiable manner to advertisers and other third parties for marketing and promotional
purposes. However, in these situations, we do not disclose to these entities any
information that could be used to identify you personally. Certain information,
such as your name, email address, password, credit card number, and bank account
number, are never disclosed to advertisers.
External Service Providers. There are a number
of services offered by external service providers that help you use our Site (e.g.,
co-branded sites, listing agents, escrow, authentication, mediation). If you choose
to use these optional services, disclose personal information to the external service
providers, and/or grant them permission to collect personal information about you,
then their use of your personal information is governed by their privacy policy.
We may, for your convenience, provide some of your personal information to the external
service provider offering such services. To prevent our disclosure of your personal
information to an external service provider, you can simply not use their services.
Because we do not control the privacy practices of these third parties, you should
evaluate their practices before deciding to use their services. Users who register
on an Refinance.com.au grant permission to pass your email address back to co-branded
web site and affiliated web sites. The use of such information by the co-branded
and affiliated web sites is limited by their applicable privacy policies.
Other Corporate Entities. We share much of
our data, including personal information about you, with our parents, subsidiaries
and joint ventures that are committed to serving your online trading needs and related
services as allowed by applicable law. In fact, the personal information we collect
is stored by Refinance.com.au on its servers as well as its hosted servers. To the
extent that these entities have access to your information, they will treat it at
least as protectively as they treat information they obtain from their other users.
Our subsidiaries and joint ventures follow privacy practices no less protective
of all users than our practices described in this Privacy Policy, to the extent
allowed by applicable law. It is possible that Refinance.com.au, its parents, subsidiaries,
its joint ventures, or any combination of such, could merge with or be acquired
by another business entity. Should such a combination occur, you should expect that
Refinance.com.au would share some or all of your information in order to continue
to provide the service. You will receive notice of such event (to the extent it
occurs) as provided in Section 8 ("Notice") we will require that the new
combined entity follow the practices disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
Legal Requests. Refinance.com.au may lawfully
disclose your personal information for law enforcement or regulatory purposes. Refinance.com.au
cooperates with law enforcement inquires and other third parties to enforce laws,
intellectual property and other rights. We can (and you authorise us to) disclose
any information about you to law enforcement or other governmental officials as
we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary, appropriate or as otherwise permitted
under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), in connection with an investigation of fraud,
intellectual property infringements, piracy or other activity that is illegal or
may expose us to legal liability.
Control of Your Password
You are responsible for all actions taken with your User Name and Password. Therefore
we do not recommend that you disclose your Refinance.com.au password to any third
parties. If you choose to share your User Name and Password or your information
with third parties to provide you additional services, you agree that you are responsible
for all actions taken with your User Name and Password and therefore you should
review that third party's privacy policy. If you lose control of your password,
you may lose substantial control over your personal information and may be subject
to legally binding actions taken on your behalf. Therefore, if your password has
been compromised for any reason, you should immediately change your password by
sending us an email to privacy@refinance.com.au or
Contact Us
Accessing, Reviewing and Changing Your Personal Information
Following a full registration (Brokers & Lenders only), you can review and change
the information you submitted during registration including:
- Your email address
- Your registration information such as: name, company, address, city, state, post
code, country, primary phone number, secondary phone number, fax number and gender.
- Your password (You need to contact us directly through this form)
You must promptly update your personal information if it changes.
Upon your request, we will deactivate your account, contact information, and financial
information from our active databases. To make this request, email privacy@refinance.com.au
or contact us. Such
information will be deactivated as soon as reasonably possible.
We will retain in our files information you have requested to remove in some circumstances,
such as to prevent fraud, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, assist with any
investigations, and to comply with legal requirements. Further, such prior information
is never completely removed from our databases due to technical constraints and
the fact that we back up our systems. Therefore, you should not expect that all
of your personal information will be completely removed from our databases in response
to your requests. However, such information will be deactivated from public viewing
and usage by visitors of Refinance.com.au and will only be available to select Refinance.com.au
personnel.
Other Information Collectors
Except as otherwise expressly discussed in this Privacy Policy, this document only
addresses the use and disclosure of information we collect from you. To the extent
that you disclose your information to other parties, whether they are lenders, non-lenders
or brokers on our Site or other sites throughout the Internet, different rules may
apply to their use or disclosure of the personal information you disclose to them.
To the extent that we use third party advertisers, they adhere to their own privacy
customs and policies. Since Refinance.com.au does not control the privacy policies
of third parties, you are subject to the privacy policies of that third party. We
encourage you to ask questions before you disclose your personal information to
others.
Security
Your Information is stored on Refinance.com.au servers located in our head office
as well as our hosting company servers. We use industry standard efforts to safeguard
the confidentiality of your personal information, such as firewalls and Secure Socket
Layers. However, "perfect security" does not exist on the Internet.
Notice
We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time based on your comments and our
need to accurately reflect our data collection and disclosure practices. All changes
to this policy are effective after posted on this Site.
Links to other Sites
We provide links to Web sites outside of our web sites, as well as to third party
Web sites. These linked sites are not under our control, and we cannot accept responsibility
for the conduct of companies linked to our website. Before disclosing your personal
information on any other website, we advise you to examine the terms and conditions
of using that Web sites and its privacy statement.
Further Privacy Information
For more information about privacy issues in Australia and protecting your privacy,
visit the Australian
Federal Privacy Commissioner's website.