Privacy
What’s more, we take all possible steps to ensure that your information is not disclosed to – or accessed by – unauthorised persons.
As our customer, we also respect your right to be aware of who has information about you, what they are doing with it and why, and who else they are sharing it with.
With all this in mind Wide Bay Australia Ltd (ABN 40 087 652 060) and its related entities including its subsidiaries:
- Mortgage Risk Management Pty Ltd (ABN 99 082 740 010)
- Wide Bay Australia Mini-Lease Pty Ltd (ABN 69 068 790 152)
has adopted a privacy compliance culture that cements this relationship with you. Its foundation is the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988, in particular the National Privacy Principles (PDF, 4KB).
The Wide Bay Australia Ltd Privacy Policy is detailed below. This information on our privacy policies is current 22nd May 2007 but may change. Our privacy policy may be reviewed from time to time in line with changes in law, technology and market practice.
Collection
We collect personal information about you to assess your applications for and to establish and maintain a financial services relationship with you and to enhance our relationship with you. This includes offering and providing products, service and advice on investment, finance, banking, insurance, financial planning and related products and services.
Types of information we collect and handle may include (but is not limited to): identity and contact details of you and your referees, information about your financial circumstances, financial transactions and history, products or services you may have expressed an interest in, applied for or use, and in some cases, your sensitive information such as health details.
Generally, we collect personal information directly from you – for example on application forms, in correspondence, face-to-face, or over-the-telephone or via the internet.
On occasions, we obtain information about you from others – for example credit references when applying for finance or details of payments associated with electronic debits from your account.
Collecting and handling this information allows us to provide the financial services you have selected, offer further financial services to you in the future, manage our financial services relationship with you and tailor these services to best suit your needs.
From time to time, you may provide us with personal information relating to other individuals (for example direct credits to another person’s account). In these cases, it is your responsibility to ensure that this person is aware that you have his/her information, the purposes (and persons) involved in the collection, use and disclosure of that information by you, and that we can be contacted (including to access and correct that information) at the address below.
In most cases we will require you to specifically consent to any collection, use or disclosure of your personal information. Your consent will usually be required in writing (for example on application forms) but we may accept your verbal consent in certain circumstances.
For example your consent may be implied through your conduct with us such as when you send us a letter or provide information over-the-counter at a branch to a customer service consultant.
However, no matter how your personal information is collected it is dealt with in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Use & Disclosure
Our use and disclosure of information about you may be necessary to establish and maintain an investment, finance, banking, insurance, financial planning or related financial services relationship with you.
We will not use or disclose this information for a purpose unrelated to this or outside your reasonable expectations unless we have your agreement or need to meet a legal obligation or authority.
As with all financial institutions we rely on third party suppliers to carry out specialised activities. While your personal information may be provided to these third parties to enable them to perform their agreed activities, they are bound by confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements and are prohibited from using the information for any other purpose.
We do not send information outside of Australia unless authorised to do so by law.
Openness
If you would like more detailed information on Wide Bay’s handling of personal information (including the sort of personal information we hold, for what purposes and how we collect, hold, use and disclose that information) please contact the address below.
Quality, Access & Correction
Your personal information is integral to decisions we make about our products and services for you. It is essential that this information is correct and up-to-date.
You are encouraged to assist us to ensure this by alerting us to any changes in your particular circumstances. Simply contact us and advise the changes to your personal information and we will take reasonable steps to ensure the information is accurate, complete and up-to-date.
In some cases, we may require you to complete a form with the new details or provide us with additional evidence. If we refuse to correct personal information we will give you a reason. You may choose to provide a statement claiming that the information is not accurate, complete or up-to-date and we will take reasonable steps to associate this statement with the information.
You are also welcome to get access to information we hold about you and to draw any inaccuracies to our attention. You may obtain specific information (eg contact details) in most cases by contacting our Head Office or branches and we will provide details of the information after establishing your identity.
For more complex enquiries, for example to access information held across the Society or in archives - you should complete a "Request for Access to Personal Information" form available by contacting the address below.
Our proposed collection, use and disclosure and your access and correction rights relating to your personal information are subject to the restrictions imposed by the Privacy Act 1988. Accordingly, we reserve the right to limit access in certain legally allowable circumstances – in such an event this reason will be provided to you.
Please note that there may be a fee for supplying the information and/or documentation to you. This fee is calculated as an estimate of the cost to reimburse us for the expense of retrieving and/or copying the information or documentation and will be detailed in the brochure "Deposit Accounts and Banking Services: Schedule of Fees and Charges". We will provide a verbal estimate of the amount of this fee before retrieval of the information and/or documentation is undertaken.
Security
We are committed to safeguarding information we handle about you. This includes preventing its misuse or loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure both internally and externally.
Some of the ways we protect your personal information include:
- External and internal premises security
- Restricted access to personal information
- Entering into confidentiality agreements with employees and contractors
- Having in place stand-by systems to deal with major business interruptions
- Maintaining technology products to prevent unauthorised computer access
- Regular reviewing and testing of technology in order to improve the level of security
We will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify information if it is no longer needed.
Third Parties
For some of the products and services we offer, we act as an agent or supplier for a third party. For example, for insurance and credit card products. A list of these third parties is available by contacting the address below.
In respect of the collection, use, disclosure, transfer and management of personal information for these products and services – we comply with the procedures and policies required by the third parties to whom we act as agent or supplier.
Details of the purposes, procedures, policies and your access, correction and other rights in regard to your personal information for these products and services can be obtained by contacting these third parties directly. If you are unsure who to contact in this regard please contact the address below.
Direct Marketing
We will keep you informed about the financial services we offer (or those offered by our subsidiaries, joint venture partners and third parties for which we act as agent) if we believe this information may be of interest to you or if it may help us develop and improve our services to you.
However, we respect your wishes with regard to your privacy, so if you do not wish to receive this information please contact us at the address below. If we are not advised in this regard, we will assume that you consent to the use of your personal information for this purpose.
We will however continue to send you information relating to the financial services that you have selected - such as newsletters, statements, statement inserts or offers to upgrade these services.
In circumstances, where you notify us of your preference not to receive direct marketing material relating to products and services offered by Wide Bay acting in its capacity as an agent for a third party (or where we receive advice directly from the third party to whom we act as agent) we will cease sending you information about the products and services offered by these third parties. We will however continue to send you information relating to Wide Bay’s own products and services - unless you advise us otherwise as above.
Identification Requirements
Generally it is not possible for us to do business with you unless we have identified you, and in some cases, such as when you open an account with us, the law requires that you identify yourself to us.
Wherever it is lawful and practicable to do so, we may offer you the opportunity to deal with us anonymously.
We do not use Commonwealth identifiers (a Commonwealth Government or Commonwealth Government agency designated identification number) as a means of identifying the personal information that we may have collected about you.
We only use Commonwealth identifiers as a means by which you may prove your identity to us or for purposes required by law (such as supplying your Tax File Number to the Australian Taxation Office).
The Internet
The Internet has increased opportunities for us to provide you with information and financial services and for you to provide us with personal information – in particular through our website: www.widebayaust.com.au
Information logged: It is a necessary part of visiting any web site, including www.widebayaust.com.au that your web browser provides the machine's identity (its IP address) to the web server, so that the server can address the reply to the correct machine.
In addition, when you visit our website, our server logs the following information that is provided by your browser for statistical purposes only:
- The type of browser and operating system you are using;
- The date and time of your visit; and
- The address of the pages accessed and the documents downloaded.
We use this information only for statistical analysis or systems administration purposes. No attempt will be made to identify users or their browsing activities, except in the event of an investigation where a law enforcement agency may exercise a warrant.
Cookies: While we do not currently use cookies to
allow us to identify your browser while you are using our site, we may adopt
this procedure in the future. Cookies do not identify you, they simply allow
us to track usage patterns so that we can measure the level of interest in
various areas of our site. All browsers allow you to be notified when you receive
a cookie and to elect to either accept it or not. Your Internet service provider
should be able to assist you to set your preferences.
Provision of email addresses: We seek feedback from you in order
to improve the services we offer. We will only record your email address if
you send us a message or provide it in any online response
forms or applications. It will only be used for the purpose for which you have
provided it and will not be added to a mailing list without your consent. However,
if you provide your email address as a client of Wide Bay (including for internet
banking purposes) we may use this address to send you information about our
services. However, you can elect not to receive information from us by contacting
the address below (refer to Direct Marketing above). We will not use your email
address for any other purpose and will not disclose it without your consent.
Security of your personal information online: Generally email is not a secure way to communicate therefore you should not send your personal information to us via email unless you are using our Secure Messages within our "smartlink" Internet Banking service or one of our secure online forms including our on-line loan application facility on our Web site.
Secure pages are identified by a pad lock appearing at the bottom of the browser window. This can also be confirmed by the prefix https:// in the address bar of your browser window.
We maintain significant technology and procedures in respect to our online transactions. These measures are continually updated to maintain this security and are regularly audited by external experts.
Links to other sites: Our web site contains links to other sites.
We are not responsible for the content and the privacy practices of other web
sites and encourage you to examine each site's privacy policies. We
endeavour to provide warning messages on links to external sites using Javascript.
You must have Javascript enabled in your browser to access this feature.
Contact Us
Should you require more detailed information on the way in which we handle information about you including the sort of personal information we hold, the purposes for doing so, and how this information is collected, held, used and disclosed, or should you be concerned about our treatment of your personal information, please contact: (no stamp required)
The Privacy Officer
Wide Bay Australia Ltd
Reply Paid 1063
Bundaberg Qld 4670; or
Telephone 07 4150 4000
E-mail:
This information on our privacy policies is current 27th February 2003 but may change. Our privacy policy may be reviewed from time to time in line with changes in law, technology and market practice.
