This Privacy Policy governs the online information collection practices of Prime Tax Experts (“Prime,” “we” or “us”). Specifically, it outlines the types of information that we gather about you while you are using our website (the “Site”), and the ways in which we use this information. Prime and its affiliates are not responsible or liable for any acts or omissions of Prime or any other member of Prime.
Purpose
We are committed to protecting privacy and confidentiality in accordance with the Australian Privacy
Principles (‘APPs’), Credit Reporting Privacy Code and Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (‘Privacy Act’), and it is one of our prime responsibilities, that any personal or sensitive information provided to us is not used for any other purpose than that of which is intended and expected. This Privacy Policy describes our current policies and practices for collecting, handling, using and disclosing personal information. It also deals with how to complain about a breach of the privacy laws, how individuals can access the personal information we hold about them and how to have that information corrected.
Scope
This Privacy Policy applies to Prime and its affiliated entities, including its related bodies
corporate (as that term is defined under the Corporations Act 2001(Cth)) (‘Prime’) who are bound by the Australian Privacy Principles, Credit Reporting Privacy Code and Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and will protect the personal information of individuals in accordance with the above.
What is personal information?
Personal information includes any information or opinion about an identified individual or an individual who
can be reasonably identified from their information. The information or opinion will still be personal information whether it is true or not and regardless of whether Prime have kept a record of it.
We may collect personal information about the following individuals:
• Clients including but not limited to Natural persons, Sole traders, Partnerships, Companies, Trusts, Trustees, Self-Managed Superannuation Funds, and Companies;
• prospective clients;
• service providers or suppliers;
• prospective employees, employees and contractors; and
• other third parties with whom we come into contact.
The above listed are referred to as ‘individuals’ in this policy.
The information that Prime seeks to collect will depend on the products or services that it recommends or provides. If an individual does not allow Prime to collect all of the information requested, Prime may not be able to deliver all of those services effectively.
Whereby Prime receives unsolicited personal information about individuals, if possible, Prime will return the unsolicited personal information to the person who provided it. In all other cases, we destroy the information, unless the personal information is relevant to Prime’s purposes for collecting personal information.
What kind of personal information does Prime collect and hold?
Prime will not collect any personal information except when the individual has knowingly provided that information to us or authorised a third party to provide that information to us.
Prime may ask for identification information. This information may include but is not limited to name, address, contact details, date of birth, and tax file number.
We will not use identifiers assigned by the Government, such as a tax file number, Medicare number or provider number, for our own file recording purposes.
Prime may collect and hold additional personal information about individuals. This could include transaction information or making a record of queries or complaints an individual makes and, if they make an insurance claim, collecting additional information to assess the claim.
The collection of sensitive information is restricted by the Privacy Act. This includes information about religion, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, criminal record, and sexual orientation. It also includes health information and biometric information.
Generally, Prime only collects this sort of information if it is necessary to provide a specific product or service and the individual has consented to that collection. For example, we may collect health information about the individual to process a claim under an insurance policy or collect voice biometric information to verify identity or authorise transactions.
What if an individual chooses not to provide some information?
Prime may be unable to provide its services if it does not have all the relevant information it requires to deliver such services.
For what purposes does Prime collect, hold, use and disclose personal information?
The main reason Prime collect, use, hold and disclose personal information is to facilitate the provision of its service offerings. This includes:
• Checking whether an individual is eligible for the product or service;
• Assisting where online applications are not completed;
• Providing the product or service; and
• Helping to manage the product or service.
Prime may also use information to comply with legislative or regulatory requirements in any jurisdiction, prevent fraud, crime or other activity that may cause harm in relation to its products or services and to help run the business. Prime may also use information to tell individuals about products or services that it feels may interest them.
What service offerings does Prime provide?
Prime understands the importance of a holistic service offering, whereby its clients can see their goals, needs and expectations being met. This approach encompasses:
• Wealth Management
• Self-Managed Super Fund
• Lending
• Tax
• Accounting
• Insurance, including general and risk
• Specialist Services, including specialist tax
• Business Advisory
• Corporate Finance
• Audit and Assurance
• Bookkeeping
• Risk and Management Consulting
What laws require or authorise Prime to collect personal information?
Prime collects most of the personal information directly from the individual. This can be done electronically. (see section "Does Prime collect personal information electronically?" of this policy for more information).
Prime also collects personal information about an individual from other areas of its business including sharing information amongst its subsidiaries and related parties or from third party organisations. This may happen without the individual’s direct involvement. For instance, Prime will collect personal information about an individual from:
• Publicly available sources of information;
• The individual’s external representatives (including legal adviser, mortgage broker, executor, administrator, guardian, trustee, or attorney);
• The individual’s other Prime representatives (including Accountant, mortgage broker, general insurance broker, business advisory adviser);
• The individual’s employer;
• Other organisations, who jointly with Prime, provide products or services to the individual;
• Commercial information service providers, such as companies that provide fraud prevention reports; and
• Insurers, re-insurers and health care providers
What laws require or authorise Prime to collect personal information?
Prime is required or authorised to collect:
• Certain identification information about an individual by the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter- Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) and Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Rules Instrument 2007 (No. 1);
• An individual’s Tax File Number, if they choose to provide it, by the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth); and
• Certain information in relation to the individual’s application if they have applied for an insurance as required by the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 (Cth).
How does Prime hold personal information?
Prime strives to maintain the relevance, reliability, accuracy, completeness and currency of the personal information we hold and to protect its privacy and security. Much of the information Prime holds about an individual will be stored electronically in secure data centres, which are located in Australia, and owned by either Prime or external service providers. This does not include third parties backing up or mirroring their data in overseas jurisdictions. Some information Prime holds about an individual will be stored in paper files and these files will be held in secure offsite storage.
Prime use a range of physical and electronic security measures to protect the security of the personal information they hold. For example:
• Access to information systems is controlled through identity and access management;
• Employees are bound by internal information security policies and are required to keep information secure
• All employees are required to complete training about information security; and
• Regular monitoring and review their compliance with internal policies and industry best practice.
Prime take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify any personal information after it can no longer be used.
Who does Prime disclose personal information to, and why?
Prime may provide personal information about individuals to external organisations. To protect personal information, Prime enter into contracts with their service providers that require them to comply with the Privacy Act. These contracts oblige them to only use the personal information Prime disclose to them for the specific role they ask them to perform.
Generally, Prime disclose personal information to organisations that help them with their business. These may include:
• Prime agents, contractors and external service providers (for example, mailing houses and technology service providers);
• Insurers, re-insurers and health care providers;
• Payment systems operators (for example, merchants receiving card payments);
• Other organisations, who jointly with Prime, provide products or services to the individual;
• Financial services organisations, including banks, superannuation funds, stockbrokers, custodians, fund managers and portfolio service providers;
• Debt collectors;
• Prime legal advisers or auditors;
• An individual’s representatives (including their legal adviser, accountant, mortgage broker, executor, administrator, guardian, trustee, or attorney);
• Fraud bureaus or other organisations to identify, investigate or prevent fraud or other misconduct;
• IT Service Providers;
• External dispute resolution schemes; and
• Regulatory bodies, government agencies and law enforcement bodies in any jurisdiction
• Other companies in the event of a corporate sale, merger, reorganisation, dissolution or similar event
We may also disclose an individual’s personal information to others where:
• Prime are required or authorised by law or where they have a public duty to do so;
• The individual may have expressly consented to the disclosure or the consent may be reasonably inferred from the circumstances; or
• Prime are otherwise permitted to disclose the information under the Privacy Act.
How might we use or disclose credit information?
In relation to credit information held by us, we will only use and disclose credit information for the following purposes:
• Assessing an individual’s credit worthiness and likelihood of approval for an application for credit;
• Collecting payments that are overdue in relation to any credit that may be provided by us;
• Dealing with a serious credit infringement we believe an individual has committed;
• Assisting external dispute resolution scheme of which we are a member;
• If the disclosure is required or authorised by law;
• Assisting the individual to avoid defaulting on his or her credit obligations; or
• The provision or management of credit to an individual.
We will only disclose credit information to the following recipients:
• A related body corporate;
• A person who will be processing an individual’s application for credit;
• A person who manages credit;
• A credit provider if we believe an individual has committed a serious credit infringement, or the individual has consented to the disclosure;
• To a person considering whether to act as a guarantor or offer property as security and the individual have expressly consented to the disclosure;
• A debt collector;
• A mortgage insurer;
• A credit reporting body; and
• Anyone else to whom the individual authorises us to disclose it
Does Prime hold credit card or other payment details?
If and when Prime collect credit card or other payment details, we will not store them. The card details will be passed directly via a secure encrypted SSL connection directly to the bank’s payment getaway. Furthermore, the page that transmits card details has been through thorough checks and has been deemed to be PCI DSS compliant by an Approved Scanning Vendor.
Does Prime disclose personal information overseas?
Prime may disclose an individual’s personal information to a recipient which is located outside Australia. This includes:
• Any financial institution which the individual holds an account with overseas where they has given Prime permission to make enquiries on their behalf
• Other members of Prime that are located outside Australia, in some circumstances
• Some encrypted data may be backed up or mirrored in overseas jurisdictions by third parties.
We will not send personal information to recipients outside of Australia unless:
• We have taken reasonable steps to ensure that the recipient does not breach the Act, the APPs and the Credit Reporting Privacy Code;
• The recipient is subject to an information privacy scheme similar to the Privacy Act; or
• The individual has consented to the disclosure
Does Prime use or disclose personal information for marketing?
Prime will use personal information to offer individuals products and services they believe may interest them, but will not do so if the individual tells them not to. Prime may offer individuals products and services by various means, including mail, telephone, email, SMS or other electronic means, such as through social media or targeted advertising through Prime’s website.
Prime may also disclose an individual’s personal information to external companies who assist Prime to market their products and services to the individual, such as a mailing house.
If individuals do not wish to receive marketing offers from Prime, they must expressly request Prime not to do so.
Does Prime collect personal information electronically?
Prime will collect information from individuals electronically, for instance through internet browsing, mobile or tablet applications.
Each time an individual visits one of Prime’s websites, Prime collects information about the individual’s use of the website, which may include the following:
• The date and time of visits;
• Which pages are viewed;
• How users navigate through the site and interact with pages (including fields completed in forms and applications completed);
• Location information about users;
• Information about the device used to visit our website; and
• IP addresses
Prime uses technology called cookies whenever an individual visits a Prime website. Cookies are small pieces of information stored on the individual’s hard drive or in memory. Cookies can record information about an individual’s visits to the site, allowing it to remember them the next time they visit and provide a more meaningful experience.
One of the reasons for using cookies is to offer individuals increased security. The cookies Prime send to an individual’s computer cannot read their hard drive, obtain any information from their browser or command their computer to perform any action. Cookies are designed so that they cannot be sent to another site, or be retrieved by any non-Prime site.
Prime won't ask individuals to supply personal information publicly over Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media platform that we use. Sometimes Prime may invite individuals to send their details to them via private messaging, for example, to answer a question. Individuals may also be invited to share their personal information through secure channels to participate in other activities, such as competitions.
Keeping information Secure
Prime uses security procedures and technology to protect the information we hold. To prevent misuse or unlawful disclosure of sensitive information, Prime has implemented internal policies which cover staff conduct, continuous training and monitoring of staff, and the inclusion of checks in the Audit function. If other organisations provide support services, we require these organisations to appropriately safeguard the privacy of the information provided to them.
Where the personal information we collect is no longer required, we delete the information or permanently de-identify it in accordance with relevant laws and our internal records management policy.
Access to and correction of personal information
Under the Privacy Act, individuals have a right to seek access to information which we hold about them; although, there are some exceptions to this. They also have the right to ask us to correct information about them which is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. To do so, they must contact Prime.
We do not charge for receiving a request for access to personal information or for complying with a correction request. We do however reserve the right to charge you for all reasonable costs and outgoings specifically incurred in meeting your request for information. In processing an individual’s request for access to their personal information, a reasonable cost may be charged if they have requested access more than once within twelve months. This charge covers such things as locating the information and supplying it to them.
There are some circumstances in which Prime are not required to give individuals access to their personal information. If Prime refuse to give an individual access to or to correct their personal information, Prime will give them a notice explaining the reasons why, except where it would be unreasonable to do so. If we refuse an individual request to correct their personal information, the individual also has the right to request that a statement be associated with their personal information noting that they disagree with its accuracy. If Prime refuses an individual’s request to access or correct their personal information, we will also provide them with information on how they can complain about the refusal.
Notification
Due to the Privacy Amendment (Notifiable Data Breaches) Act 2017, Prime is legally required to notify affected individuals of any eligible data breaches. To comply with this legal requirement, Prime has implemented a Data Breach Response Plan in order to deal with actual or potential data breaches as well as the notification process to be followed when notifying affected individuals.
Resolving privacy concerns and complaints
If an individual is concerned about how their personal information is being handled or if they have a complaint about a breach by Prime of the Australian Privacy Principles, they must contact Prime.
Prime will acknowledge the complaint as soon as practical after receipt of the individual’s complaint. Prime will let the individual know if they need any further information from the individual to resolve their complaint.
We aim to resolve complaints as quickly as possible. We strive to resolve complaints within five business days but some complaints can take longer to resolve. If a complaint is taking longer, we will let the individual know what is happening and a date by which they can reasonably expect a response.
If the individual is unhappy with our response, there are other bodies they can go to.
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) can consider most privacy complaints involving providers of financial services.
Under the Privacy Act, an individual may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner about the way Prime handled their personal information.
The Commissioner can be contacted at:
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner GPO Box 5218
Sydney NSW 2001
Phone: 1300 363 992
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.oaic.gov.au
We may change the way we handle personal information from time to time for any reason. If so, we will update this Privacy Policy which will be updated on the website accordingly.
