Avantage Australia Privacy Policy

 1. PURPOSE

Avantage Australia is committed to protecting your personal information and ensuring that it complies with its obligations under the Privacy Act.

• Members of Avantage Australia will on occasions collect information from individuals.
• The information that is collected will be held by members of Avantage Australia.
• The privacy of your information is afforded the highest level of importance.
• We are bound by the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)(‘the Act’), which contains the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) (the Privacy Laws), regarding the manner in which we handle your information and how we respond to your requests to access and correct it. This document sets out our information handling procedures and the rights and obligations that both you and we have in relation to your information.

2. WHO DOES THIS POLICY APPLY TO?
   • This Policy applies to all transactions Avantage Australia has with individuals, customers, guarantors, suppliers and other service providers.
   • When we request your information, you have the right to refuse to provide us with information. However, if you refuse, we may be unable to process your transaction, provide a service to you, inform you of other products and services that may be of interest, or deliver your products or services to you.

3. COLLECTION OF YOUR INFORMATION

We may collect information from

• publicly available resources.
• any person authorised or nominated to act on your behalf or to provide your information.
• credit reporting bodies and credit providers.
• any persons sharing information with us for loss prevention and/or law enforcement purposes.

4. KIND OF INFORMATION THAT WE HOLD ABOUT YOU

The kind of information that we hold about you includes:

• your name, date of birth, and contact details.
• your personal and business address, phone number and email address.
• your signature and driver’s licence number.
• information from you personally or from any person authorised to act on your behalf or authorised to provide your information to Avantage Australia.
• purchases and payment details.
• correspondence and billing documents.
• warranty claims.
• location data.
• customer survey information.

5. CREDIT PROVIDER INFORMATION

To the extent that Avantage Australia provides you with credit, reviews the credit provided or considers your eligibility for credit, Avantage Australia may collect, in addition to the information noted above:

• your current and former employment details.
• details of your assets, income and expenditure.
• records of any credit provider asking a credit reporting body for information about you in relation to any credit application.
• your credit payment information or any default information.
• information regarding court proceedings related to your credit, your insolvency information and any other credit-related publicly available information relating to you.
• information from your accountant or referees that you nominate.
• information from publicly available sources, including title searches, Personal Property Security Act searches, internet search platforms and social media platforms.
• We may use and disclose credit information
  1. to form decisions as to whether to provide you, or any entity associated with you, with credit, to accept you as a guarantor or to provide credit to a person or entity for which you might act as a guarantor.
  2. to participate in the credit reporting system and to provide information to credit reporting bodies in certain circumstances, including where you consent to the disclosure, where you fail to meet payment obligations in relation to credit provided.
• to undertake debt recovery and enforcement activities, including in relation to guarantors, and to deal with credit infringements related to credit provided.

• Credit reporting bodies are able, under applicable privacy regulation, to handle information relating to credit.
• If Avantage Australia provides your credit information to any credit reporting body, that credit reporting body may include your credit information in reports provided to other credit providers to assist such other credit providers to assess your credit-worthiness.

6. HOW WE HOLD YOUR INFORMATION

We hold all hardcopy and electronic records of information in a secure manner to ensure that they are protected from unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. Our staff follow strict information handling procedures, and we only permit those staff whose tasks require use of your information to access it. We delete your information once it is no longer needed or required to be kept by law by deleting electronic records.

7. RETENTION OF INFORMATION

We will retain your information, only for as long as the information is needed for the purposes set forth in this Policy and for any additional period that may be required or permitted by law.

8. YOUR RIGHTS

You may at any time ask us to erase, restrict or port your information and object to the use of your information. When data processing is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by sending a request by email to Avantage Australia

9. COOKIES

We may use “cookies” and similar technology on our websites and in other technology applications. The use of such technologies is an industry standard and helps to monitor the effectiveness of advertising and how visitors use our websites/applications. We may use such technologies to generate statistics, measure your activity, improve the usefulness of our websites/applications and to enhance the “customer” experience. If you prefer not to receive cookies, you can adjust your Internet browser to refuse cookies or to warn you when cookies are being used. However, our websites may not function properly or optimally if cookies have been turned off.

10. SOCIAL MEDIA

We may use social networking services and when you communicate with Avantage Australia, via social media, we may collect information about you as part of the communications.

11. DIRECT MARKETING

Subject to the requirements under the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) and Do Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth) where you have consented to Avantage Australia directly marketing to you about goods and services that we believe may be of interest to you, you are entitled to withdraw that consent at any time.

12. YOUR RIGHT TO LODGE A COMPLAINT

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your information or want to make a complaint you can lodge a complaint with the Australian Federal Privacy Commissioner.

13. FURTHER INFORMATION

If you have any queries or requests or require further information regarding your privacy, please contact Avantage Australia