Personal information is information or opinion that allows others to identify you. It includes your name, age, gender, contact details, as well as your health and financial information. We will act to protect your personal information in accordance with the National Privacy Principles.

We value your trust and loyalty. The protection of your personal information is a vital part of this relationship. We have vast experience in keeping personal information gathered by electronic means confidential. And we will use all our resources to ensure the best available levels for the protection of your personal information. 

We collect personal information to provide you with the products and services you request as well as information on other products and services offered by us or recommended by us. The law may also require us to collect personal information. We will tell you who collects the personal information, advise you of their contact details, your right of access to that information, and what will happen if you choose not to provide the information.

Personal information may be used and disclosed within our Company to administer our products and services, maintain our Company's relationship with you, and as well as for prudential and risk management purposes and, unless you tell us otherwise, to provide you with related marketing information. We co-operate with police and other enforcement bodies as required or allowed by law.

We disclose relevant personal information to external organisations that help us provide services. These organisations are bound by confidentiality arrangements. They may include overseas organisations.

You can seek access to the personal information we hold about you. If the information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated, please inform us so that we can correct it. 

Further information and feedback

The pages that follow contain more detailed information about our privacy and information handling practices.

If you have any questions or would like further information on our privacy and information handling practices, please contact us by:

• e-mail our Customer Relations department
• or writing to the address below:
  
  Privacy Officer
  Customer Relations
  DigiBOAT Pty Limited
  PO Box 408
  Newport Beach NSW 2106
  AUSTRALIA

Common law duty of confidentiality

As part of the general law governing the supplier/customer contract, we are required to keep any information about customers in the strictest confidence. Traditionally, information held about a customer could only be disclosed if:

• they had the customer's express or implied consent;
• the disclosure was compelled by law; for example, under Taxation Acts;
• the disclosure was required in the best interests of the Company; for example, to a court if defending or conducting legal action involving a customer. This exception does not, as it is sometimes thought, allow a Company to disclose information for any purpose it chooses; or
• the disclosure was in the public interest; for example, if a customer's dealings indicate that he or she was trading with the enemy during a time of war. This exception is used rarely and only in the most serious circumstances.

As a matter of policy, DigiBOAT observes this standard of confidentiality. Whilst these general requirements remain in place, we now have broader obligations, under the National Privacy Principles, which are contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Australian Commonwealth).

Privacy Act 1988

The (Australian) Commonwealth Government has enacted privacy legislation to protect information held by all credit providers about their customers' personal credit dealings. Since 1991, under Part IIIA of the Privacy Act, credit providers have only been allowed to disclose information about personal credit dealings to certain classes of persons (such as a bank or a credit union) for certain very limited purposes.

Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000

In December 2000, the Commonwealth Government enacted further privacy legislation, which commenced 21 December 2001, amending the Privacy Act (implementing the National Privacy Principles) to include provisions that regulate the way private sector organisations collect, use, disclose, keep secure and provide access to personal information.

DigiBOAT acts to protect your personal information in accordance with the National Privacy Principles.

This document

The information in this document details how we comply with the requirements of the Privacy Act in protecting the personal information we hold about you.

What is "personal information"?

Personal information is information or an opinion, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion.

Why we collect information

Personal information is collected so that we may:

• administer our customer relationships;
• provide customers with the products and services they request and, unless they tell us otherwise, to provide information on products offered by other associated companies.

Personal information may also be used for:

• monitoring and evaluating products and services;
• gathering and aggregating information for statistical, prudential, actuarial and research purposes;
• assisting customers with queries; and

What we collect

Personal information collected generally comprises name, address, contact details (e-mail) and financial information (if ordering products on-line). We also request your assistance by asking for some general information regarding the type of boat you own and its general use, and navigation systems in use. Sometimes we collect a few personal details unlikely to be known to other people to help us uniquely identify you.

In addition, as required by Part IIIA of the Privacy Act 1988, we will obtain your consent to collect, use and disclose credit information about you.

We do not collect information about your political or religious beliefs, or ethnic background.

What if you provide incomplete or inaccurate information?

We may not be able to provide you with the products or services you are seeking.

Obtaining your consent

In most cases, before or at the time of taking out a new product we obtain your consent to the purposes for which the personal information garnered intends to be used and your consent to our needs to disclose your personal information (for example: supplying your address details to an international C-MAP office).

If you do not give us consent, we may not be able to provide you with the products or services you want. This is because it is impracticable for us to treat some customers differently, as most of our processing is automated and database driven.

Withdrawing consent

Having provided consent, you are able to withdraw it at any time. To withdraw consent, please notify us by email. Please note that withdrawing your consent may lead to us not being able to provide you with the product or service you enjoy given that, as mentioned above, it is impracticable for us to treat some customers differently.

Information collected from someone else

In some cases, your personal information may be provided to us by agents, or by family members or friends. We will take reasonable steps to let you know that we have your personal information, unless it is obvious from the circumstances that you know or would expect us to have the information, such as an automated email reply. Reasonable steps may include asking the person who gave us your information to let you know that we have that information.

Collection from young people

As we gather no age nor gender based information, we have no control over possible requests from young people. In any case, we will never provide any product, service or information inappropriate or illegal for minors. 

At times, and with your permission, DigiBOAT will pass on certain details to allow them to provide you with requested products or services. For example if your address details are supplied, this will be passed on to your local C-MAP office for distribution of the C-MAP Charts on Digital Media.

Without your consent, other recipients may not use or disclose your personal information for purposes other than for which your information was originally collected. All DigiBOAT's affiliated companies comply with the same standard of privacy and information handling practices.

Who we may communicate with

Depending on the product or service you have and the member of the Group you are dealing with, we may exchange personal information with:

• brokers and agents who refer your business to us;
• external product providers for whom we act as agent (so that they may provide you with the product you seek);
• auditors we appoint to ensure the integrity of our operations;
• auctioneers (if we have to sell a property we hold as security to recover moneys owing to us);
• any person acting on your behalf, including your financial adviser, solicitor and accountant, executor, administrator, trustee, guardian or attorney;
• your referee (to confirm details about you);
• if required or authorised to do so, regulatory bodies and government agencies;
• other financial institutions and organisations at their request if you seek credit from them (for example: supplying credit card details for on-line purchases creates a credit transaction between you and your credit provider);
• suppliers from whom we order goods on your behalf (so that the goods may be provided to you);
• other organisations who in conjunction with us provide products and services (so that they may provide their products and services to you); and
• professional associations or organisations with whom we conduct an affinity relationship (to verify your membership of those associations or organisations).

If we have used an example to indicate when we might exchange personal information, the exchange of personal information may not be limited to those examples or examples of a similar kind.

Outsourcing

We disclose personal information when we outsource certain functions, including bulk mailing, market research, direct marketing, documentation production, debt recovery and information technology support. We also seek expert help from time to time to help us improve our systems, products and services.

If we use local agents, for example, local businesses, to help provide you with face-to-face services, these agents may collect personal information on our behalf.

In all circumstances where personal information may become known to our contractors, agents and outsourced service providers, there are confidentiality arrangements in place. Contractors, agents and outsourced service providers are not able to use or disclose personal information for any purposes other than our own.

DigiBOAT takes its obligations to protect customer information very seriously and we make every effort to deal only with parties who share and demonstrate the same attitude.

Sending personal information overseas

We send personal information overseas if we outsource functions using overseas agents or contractors, or to complete a particular transaction, such as supplying C-MAP chart CD-ROMs.

Disclosure required by law

We may be required by law to disclose information, for example, when we are served with a court order. We may also be required by a Government Agency to produce information and records, for example, pursuant to taxation or social security laws.

Disclosure as a result of your actions

There may be circumstances in which we consider you, by your actions, to have released us from our duty of confidentiality or to have consented to the disclosure of information about you without actually saying so (for example, if you discuss your situation publicly to the media, in such a way as to leave us with little alternative but to respond publicly).

Our goal is to ensure that the personal information we hold is accurate, complete and up-to-date. Please contact us if any of the details you have provided change. Please also contact us if you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date.

We may take steps to update personal information, for example, an address, by collecting personal information from publicly available sources, for example, telephone directories or electoral rolls or internet sites.

We are committed to keeping secure the personal information you provide to us. We take all reasonable precautions to protect the personal information we hold about you from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

We have a range of physical and technology policies in place to provide a robust security environment. We ensure the on-going adequacy of these measures by regularly reviewing them.

Our security measures include, but are not limited to:

• restricting access to our computer systems and physical records to authorised persons and preventing users from accessing information they have no need to access;
• requiring employees to use unique passwords to gain access to systems. These passwords are changed regularly and their use is independently monitored;
• concealed data sent from your computer to our systems during Internet transactions and customer access codes transmitted across networks;
• employing firewalls, intrusion detection systems and virus scanning tools to prevent unauthorised persons and viruses from entering our systems;

Where information we hold is identified as no longer needed for any purpose we ensure it is effectively and securely destroyed.

Collection of information via web site activity

For statistical purposes we collect information on web site activity (such as the number of users who visit our web sites, the date and time of visits, the number of pages viewed, navigation patterns, what country and what systems users have used to access the site and, when entering one of our web sites from another web site, the address of that web site) through the use of 'cookies'. This information on its own does not identify an individual but it does provide our Company with statistics that can be used to analyse and improve their web sites.

Cookies

A 'cookie' is a packet of information that allows the server (the computer that houses the web site) to identify and interact more effectively with your computer.

When you use one of our web sites, we may send you a temporary cookie that gives you a unique identification number. A different identification number is sent each time you use one of our web sites. Cookies do not identify individual users, although they do identify a user's browser type and your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is sent. Please refer to your browser instructions or help screens to learn more about these functions. If you reject all cookies, you may not be able to use some parts of our web sites.

To evaluate the effectiveness of our web site advertising, we may use third parties to collect statistical data concerning web site traffic. No personal data is collected on these occasions.

Links to other websites

Our web sites may contain links to other web sites. Whilst such links are provided for your convenience, you should be aware that the information handling practices of the linked web sites might not be the same as ours.

One of the reasons we collect personal information is so that we may provide you with information on future or relevant products and services. Whilst we are permitted by the Privacy Act to disclose personal information to affiliated companies for supply of their products or services to you, it is important to note that our policy is that such companies with whom you do not have a direct relationship will not use that information for the purpose of contacting you.

Please contact us immediately if you believe any affiliated companies are in breach of this policy.

You may, if you wish, indicate that you do not want to receive information on products and services offered by or through any collecting member by:

• 'ticking the box' or not suppling such optional information where applicable on any of the various web forms when you take out a product or service; or
• contacting the collecting agent at any time to indicate that you wish to 'opt out' of receiving such communication.

DigiBOAT may make changes to its privacy and information handling practices from time to time for any reason. We will publish those changes on our web sites and, if there are important changes or a lot of minor changes, by updating this document. This document is dated 1 March 2004.

You can request us to provide you with access to the personal information we hold about you.

How to gain access

Requests for access to limited amounts of personal information, such as checking to see what address or contact we have recorded, can be handled by return email.

Responding to an access request

We will respond to your access request as soon as possible. We will endeavour to comply with your request within 14 days of its receipt but, if that deadline cannot be met owing to exceptional circumstances, your request will be dealt with within 30 days. It will help us provide access if you can tell us what you are looking for. Your identity will be confirmed (including by verifying your signature) before access is provided. Note most requests are responded to within 24 hours, but for example confirming credit card details would require appropriate paper work and identification etc.

Requests may be denied or limited

If particular circumstances apply, we are permitted by the Privacy Act to deny your request for access, or limit the access we provide. We will let you know why your request is denied or limited. For example, we may give an explanation of a commercially-sensitive decision, rather than direct access to evaluative information connected with it.

If you have any questions or would like further information about our privacy and information handling practices, please contact us by:

• e-mail our Customer Relations department
• or writing to the address below:
  
  Privacy Officer
  Customer Relations
  DigiBOAT Pty Limited
  PO Box 400
  Rose Bay NSW 2029
  AUSTRALIA

Making a privacy complaint

We recognise that even in the best run organisations things can go wrong. Should you have a privacy complaint, please tell us because it gives us the opportunity to fix the problem.  

To assist us in helping you, we ask you to follow these simple steps:

1. Gather all supporting documents about the matter of complaint, think about the questions you want answered and decide on what you want us to do.
2. Contact DigiBOAT, using either method listed above, where your situation will be reviewed and if possible resolved straight away. A quick "chat" is all that's required to resolve most issues.