Eastern Equity's Privacy Policy
We have systems and procedures in place to protect your privacy whenever we collect, store, use or disclose your personal information. You can request details about the information that we hold about you and you have a right to ask us to update or correct this information.
A new Federal privacy framework regulating the way private sector organisations handle personal information has applied since 21 December 2001.
Eastern Equity is bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Commonwealth) and the National Privacy Principles set out in the Act.
How and why we collect your personal information
We collect most personal information directly from you. for example, your personal information will be collected when you fill in an application form, deal with us over the telephone, send us a letter, visit our website or when you visit us in person.
The type of personal information we collect may include your name, mailing address, telephone number, e-mail address, tax file number, date of birth, annual income and other financial details, place of work, credit history and your transaction history.
There may be occasions when we need to source personal information about you from a third party. For example, we may collect personal information from a credit reporting agency, our business alliance partners, third party brokers and government agencies.
How we use and disclose your personal information
We will tell you the purposes for which we intend to use your personal information.
We only collect personal information about you that is necessary to perform our functions and activities. If you do not provide this information, we may not be able to deal with you, or provide you with a product or service.
We may use personal information for several purposes -
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to assist in providing information about a product or service
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to consider your request for a product or service
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to enable us to provide a product or service
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to tell you about products and services that may be of interest to you
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to prevent or investigate any fraud or crime (or a suspected fraud or crime)
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as required by relevant laws, regulations, Codes and external payment systems
Do we use your Tax File Number or other government identifier
We do not use your Tax File Number (TFN), pension number, Medicare number or any other government agency identifier as your account, policy or application number.
We only use and disclose these numbers for the purposes required by law, such as disclosing your TFN to the Australian Taxation Office. You may use a government identifier for example, a pension number or Medicare number, to prove your identity when you deal with us.
What about sensitive information ?
We will not collect, use or disclose sensitive information about you unless it is necessary to provide you with a product or service and we have your consent or, unless we are legally required to collect, use or disclose that information.
Sensitive information, as defined by law, is any information about a person's racial or ethnic origin, political opinion, membership of a political association, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association, membership of a trade union, sexual preferences or practices, criminal record or health information.
We will always explain the purpose for collecting sensitive information. For example, we use employment and income information provided in a finance application to assess the application.
Your consent is important
Personal information is usually used or disclosed only after obtaining your consent to disclose. Your consent can be express or implied
If you do not consent to certain uses of personal information by us, we may not be able to deal with you, or provide you with a particular product or service
The circumstances where we may use or disclose personal information without your consent are very limited. They may include where we are required by law, for the investigation of an offence or for court proceedings.
Disclosing to third parties
Subject to any general duties of confidentiality towards our customers
and subject to the Privacy Act,
Eastern Equity may need to disclose
your personal information to:
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your referee(s)
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credit reporting or debt collecting agencies
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any service provider it engages to carry out its functions and activities
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regulatory bodies, government agencies, law enforcement and courts
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other parties it is authorised or required by law to disclose information to
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other financial institutions (such as banks)
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mortgage insurers and any other reinsurer of any such mortgage insurer
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your guarantors (and intending guarantors)
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any person who introduces you to it
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your authorised agents or your executor, administrator or legal representative
Marketing and Privacy
Serving customers well is fundamental to our business. As part of this service we may use personal information we have collected to identify a product or service that may benefit you. We may contact you from time to time to let you know about new or existing products or services. You can contact us at any time if you do not want to receive marketing information from Eastern Equity.
We keep your personal information up-to-date
If we have accurate information about you, it enables us to provide you with the best possible service.
We take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up-to-date at the time of collecting, using or disclosing the information.
If you learn that current personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, you should contact us.
We will promptly update any personal information that is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.
You also have the right to request that a statement be attached to your personal information if we disagree with your request to correct the information.
We store your personal information securely
We protect any personal information that we hold about you from misuse and loss. We also protect it from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.
Your personal information can only be accessed by people properly authorised to have access.
Your personal information may be stored in hardcopy documents or electronically.
We maintain physical security, such as locks and security systems, over our paper and electronic data stores and premises. We also maintain computer and network security: for example, we use firewalls (security measures for the internet) and other security measures such as identification codes, passwords and encryption to control access to computer systems.