Property Planning Australia Privacy Policy
The Property Planning Australia Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share and protect your information. Property Planning Australia collects your personal information that you have provided to us directly and online so that we can provide you with various services.
Privacy Disclosure Statement and Consent
We collect personal information about you, to provide you with services related to Property Planning, Mortgage Strategy, sourcing for you consumer credit for personal, household, domestic or residential investment purposes, or commercial credit for business purposes, or other services stated in this consent or to support a guarantor application that you will provide. The information is required to assist us in assessing and preparing a Property Plan, Mortgage Strategy, assessing a credit or guarantor application, sourcing an appropriate lender and managing the application process where required. If you do not provide the information sought, we may be unable to process your application, or the company’s application, or we may be limited in the other services we can offer you or the company.
When you ask us to assist, you agree we can, consistent with Australia’s privacy and credit reporting laws, collect, use and exchange consumer and/or commercial credit and personal information (“information”) about you for those purposes.
In handling your personal information, Property Planning Australia and its individual representatives are committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information and complying with the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles.
Any references to ‘we, us, our’ are to the broker, our staff and will include reference to our aggregator Connective Broker Services Pty Ltd and any of it’s related companies (“Connective”).
How we protect your information
We take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification, or exposure. All Connective staff are required by the terms of their employment to maintain the confidentiality of customer information. Access to your information is restricted to those employees whose job requires that information. Access to our premises and computer systems is restricted through locks, password protection, internet firewalls and routers.
We will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify your personal information when your personal information is no longer required for our business functions.
In 2018 we underwent a full cyber security review with our IT company and two independent consultants and we review our cyber security arrangement annually. We have confirmation that we maintain some of the highest standards set out by the Australian Cyber Security Centre as confirmed by our IT contractors. Among some of the measures in place are multifactor authentication, advanced threat protection, password encryption, secure external DNS lookups and all Microsoft security patches applied within 48 hours of release. Any personal data collected is accessible by our offshore team in Nepal for processing and is stored in the cloud, the same procedures apply to our offshore team. We can provide you with our Cyber Security Statement for further information on how we protect your data.
Stringent procedures ensure that your personal data is protected at all times. In the extremely unlikely event that we suspect that there has been a data breach that may cause you serious harm, we will take all reasonable steps to assess if your data has been accessed or lost, and if this information being accessed or lost may cause you serious harm. This assessment will always be completed expeditiously and within 30 days. If we find that there has been a data breach that has the potential to cause you serious harm, this will be reported to the Office of the Information Commissioner and you directly.
Your information – Collection and Disclosure
The personal information we collect may include a broad range of information from your name, address, and contact details to other information about your qualifications, employment history and financial information.
“Personal information” may include any sensitive information (including health information) and may include any information you tell us about any vulnerability you may have. We may use that information to assess your application and, where appropriate, to source a suitable credit provider or lessor and / or insurance provider. We may, as appropriate:
- Disclose your identification information to a consumer credit reporting service (“Consumer CRS”) and/or a commercial credit reporting service (“Commercial CRS”), where we hold your consent, (refer Schedule 1).
- Use any information a CRS provides in its report to assist us to preliminarily assess your credit or guarantor application (references to a “CRS” could be to either a Consumer CRS or a Commercial CRS).
- Disclose your information to an insurer or insurers to source any insurances you wish to obtain; and
- Disclose your information to our advisers, aggregators, licensees and other financial intermediaries, a credit provider or credit providers to apply for finance on your behalf.
Some of the recipients to whom we disclose your personal information may be based overseas. It is not practicable to list every country in which such recipients are located but it is likely that such countries will include the Philippines, India and Nepal.
Credit Providers
As part of providing our services to you, we may undertake tasks for a credit provider which are reasonably necessary to manage the application process. When doing so, we are acting as agent for the credit provider, with the same privacy law requirements applying to both of us.
We may submit your application to one or more credit providers. A full list of the lenders (credit providers) we have access to can be found at:
- connective.com.au/mortgage-broking/connective-lender-panel; and
- connective.com.au/connective-asset-finance/connective-asset-finance-lender-panel
A credit provider, to whom we submit an application, may disclose information about you to, and collect information about you from, one or more CRS.
The website of each credit provider contains details of each CRS with which it deals and other details about information held about you, including whether that information may be held or disclosed overseas and, if so, in which countries. The websites also describe your key rights. These details may be described on the credit providers’ websites as ‘notifiable matters’, ‘privacy policy’, ‘credit reporting policy’ or ‘privacy disclosure statement and consent’, or similar.
For each Consumer CRS a credit provider uses, the website details will include the following specific information:
- That the CRS may include information the credit provider discloses about you to other credit providers to assess your credit worthiness.
- That, if you become overdue in making consumer credit payments or commit a serious credit infringement, the credit provider may disclose that information to the CRS.
- How you can obtain the credit provider’s and/or the CRS’s policies about managing your information.
- Your right to access and/or correct information held about you and to complain about conduct that may breach the privacy and credit reporting laws.
- Your right to request a CRS not to undertake pre-screening for purposes of direct marketing by a credit provider.
- Your right to request a CRS not to release information about you if you believe you are a victim of fraud.
This detail will also be included by the credit provider who approves your application in the privacy disclosure statement and consent document it will provide to you.
Each credit provider website includes information on how to contact it and how to obtain a copy of its privacy documents in a form that suits you (e.g. hardcopy or email).
You agree we may
Should you proceed with our ‘multi-award winning’ Property Planning and mortgage services, we may collect from you and disclose your information to other organisations to fulfil the purposes identified (or reasons related to those purposes) in this agreement. We may also contact various organisations that have information about you and your associated companies to obtain information needed to provide our services. You agree we may:
- Use your information:
- To assess your consumer or commercial credit and/or guarantee application and/or to assess a credit application by a company of which you are a director.
- To source any finances you require.
- To source any insurances you require.
- As the law authorises or requires.
- Disclose to, and obtain from, any prospective credit provider or insurer, information about you that is reasonably necessary to obtain the finance and insurances you require.
- Obtain from, and disclose to, any third party, information about you, the applicant(s) or guarantor(s) that is reasonably necessary to assist you obtain the finance and insurances required. The types of third parties may include:
- mortgage insurers, valuers, our aggregator, deposit bond providers, insurance providers and other mortgage intermediaries.
- Credit reporting agencies (such as Equifax).
- Your appointed advisors (such as your solicitor, conveyancer, accountant, financial planner real estate agent, buyer’s advocate, your partner or any persons acting on your behalf.
- Your employers (employment and salary confirmation or an employment letter).
- com.au and Gameplans.com.au developers and staff.
- Any other organisations not mentioned above which hold information about you that we require to provide our services.
- Provide your information, including your credit report(s), to one or more of the credit providers so they can assess your application, or the application of a company of which you are a director, or your suitability as a guarantor.
- Provide information about you to a guarantor, or prospective guarantor.
- Disclose your information to the extent permitted by law to other organisations that provide us with services, such as contractors, agents, printers, mail houses, lawyers, document custodians, securitisers and computer systems consultants or providers, so they can perform those services for us. Some of which may be located overseas.
- Disclose your information to any other organisation that may wish to acquire, or has acquired, an interest in our business or any rights under your contract with us, or the contract with us of a company of which you are a director.
- Disclose your information to any Government organisations as required by law.
Marketing materials
From time to time, we will use your contact details to send you direct marketing communications from Property Planning Australia that are relevant to the services we provide. We may do so by mail or electronically, unless you tell us that you do not wish to receive electronic communications. You can unsubscribe by notifying us and we will no longer send information to you.
Your consent to collect and disclose
By asking us to assist, you consent to the collection and use of the information you have provided to us for the purposes described above.
For more information on your privacy rights please visit www.oaic.gov.au
Your rights:
You have the right to ask:
- Us to provide you with the information we hold about you upon request. We will hold the information securely and may destroy our records in accordance with established industry document retention practices or as permitted by law. If you would like further information in relation to our Privacy approach, please contact us.
- Us to correct the information we hold if it is incorrect.
- Us for copies of our privacy policy and this document, in a form that suits you (e.g. hardcopy or email).
- A CRS not to use your information for direct marketing assessment purposes, including pre-screening.
- A CRS to provide you with a copy of any information it holds about you.
We will need to verify your identity before giving you access. We will normally be able to deal with your request immediately; however, if the request is complex, it may take within 14 to 30 days.
You can gain access to the information we hold about you by contacting our Privacy Officer here.
Changes to our Privacy Policy
Property Planning Australia may at any time vary the Privacy Policy on the Property Planning Australia website. You accept that by doing this, Property Planning Australia has provided you with sufficient notice of the variation.
Enquiries and Complaints
If you have any questions about privacy at Property Planning Australia or would like to enquire or make a complaint about a breach of your privacy, please contact us here. You are entitled to complain if you believe that your privacy has been compromised or that Property Planning Australia has breached the Privacy Act, or an applicable code. If you make a complaint, Property Planning Australia will respond within 48 hours to let you know who is responsible for managing your complaint.
Electronic Mail
This email may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, disclosure, copying, distribution and use are prohibited; please notify us immediately and delete this email from your systems. Property Planning Australia records and stores emails sent to us or our affiliates in keeping with our internal policies and procedures.