Gippsland Water is strongly committed to protecting
an individual's right to privacy.
Accordingly, we are committed to full compliance
with our obligations under the
Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) (‘Act’). In
particular, we will comply with the Information Privacy Principles contained in
the Act.
This Privacy Statement explains some of these
principles and how they may apply to you.
Note that the website privacy statement does not apply to linked web sites, however we do not link knowingly to sites that are privacy-invasive. When you follow a link to another site, we recommend you read the privacy statement of that site to familiarise yourself with its privacy policy.
For general information about how we seek to protect your personal information, please see the:
You can browse our website anonymously, without
disclosing your personal information. By registering your membership for our
website you may choose not to provide personal information and this will not
affect your access to the majority of the web site. However, areas or services
provided through this site that require registration may not be accessible.
Our Gippsland Water owned websites do not collect or
record personal information, other than information you choose to provide
through our online forms. Any information submitted will only be retained for
such time as necessary to carry out the purposes for which the information is
collected or as required by law.
E-mail addresses and any other contact details you
provide will not be added to a mailing list without your consent.
We may use the services of third-party software such
as email newsletter distribution software (e.g. MailChimp), and/or online
survey software (e.g. Survey Monkey) for the collection, aggregation and
analysis of some survey data. The information you provide is encrypted both
in-transit and at-rest when transferred to and stored by these third-party
providers. The information collected by these systems may be transmitted and
stored securely in the United States and is accessed by us in accordance with
each party's relevant Privacy Policy. By completing such an online transaction
(subscribing to an eNewsletter or completing an online survey), you agree to
this transfer.
You may decline to provide your personal
information. If you do provide personally identifiable information, you consent
to the possible storage of this information offshore (outside of Australia).
This means that once you have chosen to participate in the online transaction, we
will not have an obligation to take reasonable steps to ensure that the
third-party (e.g. Survey Monkey) does not breach our Privacy Policy or
Victorian Privacy Laws in relation to personal information that is given to them.
We do interact with the community via social media
channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Your
usage of these platforms to interact with us is also subject to our Privacy Policy,
as well as the Privacy Policy of the respective platforms.
Due to the public (and potentially viral) nature of
social media, you are warned not to share any personal information (such as
email addresses, phone numbers and photos) that you do not wish to be publicly
displayed. To protect everyone's privacy this warning applies to personal
information about yourself, your friends and family as well as individual Gippsland
Water staff members.
Your interactions may also be removed or hidden from
our social media pages at our discretion if they are found to be in breach of
this Privacy Statement or the Terms and Conditions of the respective pages.
Any questions, comments, messages, discussions,
images/video or other interactions with us on social media may be captured for
the purpose of record-keeping, and will be available to our staff members with
a current role requiring them to have such access. Access to this information
is removed from staff who are on extended leave or no longer employed by us.
A cookie is a block of data that is shared between a
web server and a user's browser. If you decide to use any services of our
website that require you to create an account, our website may place a cookie
on your computer. This cookie is only used to remember your login information
on the login form. Although this cookie may identify you as a registered use of
our website, your identity will not be used for any other purpose than for
which it was provided.
The following non-personal information is
automatically recorded by this site's web server for statistical and system
administration purposes only:
To the extent that this data could make you
identifiable, we will not attempt to identify individuals from the records the
server automatically generates unless that is necessary to investigate a breach
of law or regulation.
In addition to web service logs, we use Google
Analytics (which may also include the Advertising Features and Google Tag
Manager), which are web analysis services provided by Google Inc. ('Google').
All the information we collect using Google
Analytics and Google Tag Manager is for internal purposes only. We cannot
identify individuals based on the data we collect and we won't publish any of
it on our website.
Reports obtained from Google Analytics are used to
improve the efficiency and usability of this website. Google Analytics uses
cookies to help analyse how users use this site. The information generated by
the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be
transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. The
Advertising Features is a function within Google Analytics to get more advanced
information about our users, such as user demographics, user interests, and
frequency of visits.
Google Tag Manager lets us combine codes on different
areas of the website and collect data in ways that we can't do with Google
Analytics.
By using this website, you consent to Google
processing data about you in the manner and for the purposes set out above.
To opt out and prevent your data from being
collected by Google Analytics, you can download
Google's opt
out add-o
n.
Credit card details you supply to us are not stored
on our website or by us. They are transferred securely through a third party
service (Westpac PayWay) to the bank. We only retain a transaction number,
which cannot be linked to your credit card details, but is linked to your
customer record as proof of payment.
We will not disclose your personal information to a
third party without your consent, unless we are required or authorised to do so
by law or other regulation. In the event of an investigation into suspected
unlawful or improper activity, a law enforcement agency or government agency
may exercise its legal authority to inspect the web server's records (e.g. in
relation to hacking or abusive messages).
Although every effort is made with regard to
security, this web site does not guarantee secure transmission of information
over the Internet. You should be aware that there are risks in transmitting
information across the Internet. If you are concerned about conveying sensitive
material to us over the Internet, you might prefer to contact
us by telephone or mail.
Privacy
Policy
Our Privacy Policy
provides guidance and advice on the way in which we collect, hold, use and
disclose personal and health information of individuals. The policy also
details how individuals can request access to their information in addition to
outlining the complaint process for any potential breaches of privacy.
Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner
The OVIC website contains
information about the
Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014(Vic) and the
standards for the way Gippsland Water and other government organisations must
handle your personal information.