Privacy Policy & Collection Notice

This Privacy Policy and Collection Notice sets out the way that Starr Partners Pty Ltd (A.C.N. 054 801 375) and its franchisees, licensees and related bodies corporate (we, us, our) collect and use the personal information of our clients and/or persons that use our website (you). By using our website and/or accessing any of our products, services or features, you acknowledge and agree that you have read, understood and accept this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice hereunder and grant us the permissions to collect, use and disclose personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Act) for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice.

General
We are governed by the requirements of the Australian Privacy Principles (Privacy Principles), which are contained in the Act. We respect your privacy and are committed to keeping your information confidential and complying with our obligations under the Act.

The Act allows personal information to be collected, used and disclosed for the purposes for which it was collected in accordance with the Act. This Privacy Policy and Collection Notice only applies to the extent we collect, use and disclose personal information in connection with our website and the provision of our services.

We reserve the right to update, revise, amend or replace this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice from time to time. Amendments to this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice will become effective upon such changes being posted to our website. It is your obligation to periodically check this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice on our website for any updates, revisions and/or amendments, however, we will use our reasonable endeavours to promptly notify you of any such amendments to our Privacy Policy and Collection Notice (likely by way of email communication). Your continued use of our website and/or continued engagement with us following the posting of updates, revisions and/or amendments will be considered your notice to us of your acceptance to abide, and be bound, by this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice, including such updates, revisions and/or amendments.

To the extent you do not agree with our Privacy Policy and Collection Notice (as amended from time to time), you must promptly notify us.

This Privacy Policy and Collection Notice is available on our website and will be electronically provided to you when we first communicate with you by email. It will also be available in hard copy at our offices (including the offices of our franchisees) and at property inspections and auctions.

Do not provide ANY personal information to us or on our website if you do NOT agree to the contents of this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice.

What personal information do we collect?

The personal information that we collect from you may include your name, address, occupation, contact details, property details, date of birth, payment details, identification information, insurance information and any other information as it relates to the provision of our real estate and strata agency services. However, we will not collect any sensitive information about you without your consent, such as information about your religion, medical history, race or political beliefs.

Personal information about visitors to our website is collected only when knowingly and voluntarily submitted. For example, we may need to collect such information to provide you with further services or to answer or forward any requests or enquiries. It is our intention that this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice will protect your personal information from being dealt with in any way that is inconsistent with the Act and the Privacy Principles.

In addition to the above, we will collect personal information from you in the following specific circumstances (as applicable):

Property Management

• if you are a prospective or current landlord and you want us to manage your property, then we will collect personal information from you in order to identify you and the property;
• if you are a prospective or current tenant and/or you inspect any rental property, then we will collect personal information from you when you attend the property inspection; and
• if you are a prospective or current tenant and you want to rent a property, then we will collect personal information from you, usually at the rental application stage from the rental application and supporting documentation that you supply. If you are the successful tenant, then we may also collect personal information from you during the continuation of any tenancy or lease agreement with the landlord.

Sales

• if you are a prospective or current vendor and you want us to act as your sales agent, then we will collect personal information from you in order to identify you and the property;
• if you are a prospective or current purchaser and you inspect any property, then we will collect personal information from you when you attend the inspection; and
• subject to the other provisions of this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice, we may also collect personal information from you when you make any other enquiry with us about the property.

Strata Management

• if you are a prospective or current owner of a strata title lot in a strata scheme and we are appointed as the strata managing agent of that strata scheme, then we will collect personal information from you in order to identify you and the property; and
• subject to the other provisions of this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice, we may also collect personal information from you when you make any other enquiry with us about the strata management of your property.

How we collect personal information from other sources
We may collect personal information about you from other sources to the extent permitted by the Act. We will only collect and use personal information from other sources where it is reasonably necessary for us to do so in relation to, or in connection with, providing our services in connection with our real estate and strata agency business.

Examples of such sources of personal information include:

• from your agents, other owners, insurers and underwriters, contractors, legal, financial and other advisors in relation to or in connection with any tenancy, lease or contract for sale of the property;
• from public registers including those managed by the NSW Land & Property Information;
• from publicly available information;
• from property valuers or related service providers; and
• from our other service providers including any third party that has been authorised to supply us with personal information.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are entitled to retain any such information for the purpose of ongoing business relationships with you or to communicate directly with you.

How we collect your information
When you visit our website, our server may log the following information provided by your browser, namely:

• your type of browser and operating system;
• your domain name extension;
• the referring site’s address (the site with the link that led you to our website);
• your IP address;
• the date and time of the visit;
• the address of the pages visited;
• the products or services used;
• the documents downloaded.

Please note that the above information is generally only for internal statistical analysis and system administration purposes.

Any other information supplied to us (for example, if a user sends an email or enters any personal information onto our website) is treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice.

Our website may contain links to other websites from time to time. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of any other websites apart from our website and are hereby indemnified in respect thereof. For the avoidance of doubt, this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice does not extend to those linked websites and/or any other websites. Before disclosing your personal information on any other website, we recommend that you examine the terms and conditions of using those websites and their privacy statements.

When the law authorises or requires collection of personal information

Notwithstanding the contents of this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice, we may be required to collect, disclose and/ or report personal information by law or any regulatory authority. For example, we may be required to collect and disclose your personal information pursuant to the Property, Stock and Business Agents Act 2002 (NSW), including any regulation under that law.

How your personal information may be used
We may collect and disclose your personal information for the following purposes including without limitation:

Property Management

• to identify and/or verify the identity of any prospective or actual landlord or tenant for any property we manage or propose to manage;
• to process and assess any application received in relation to a tenancy or lease of any property;
• to advertise, market and promote any tenancy or lease of any property;
• to negotiate and prepare any tenancy agreement, lease or any other document for any property;
• to liaise and exchange information with the landlord or the tenant as well as their agents, contractors, legal, financial and other advisors in relation to or in connection with any tenancy or lease of the property;
• to manage any tenancy or lease agreement including the collection of rent and other amounts on behalf of the landlord and the preparation of required statements of account;
• to ensure the safety and security of landlords and existing occupiers and of each of their properties in connection with the inspection of any property by prospective tenants;
• to provide your insurer with information relating to or connected with any property;
• to comply with any applicable law in connection with the tenancy agreement or lease;
• to confirm whether the landlord or tenant is registered for GST purposes;
• to tell you about any other rental property that we are managing or any other service that we provide (this is referred to as direct marketing), unless you tell us not to ;

Sales

• to identify and/or verify the identity of any prospective or actual vendor for any property;
• to advertise, market and promote the sale of any property;
• to negotiate and manage the sale of any property (including to provide non-legal assistance with the exchange of the contracts for the sale of property as well as the preparation of any required statements of account);
• to liaise and exchange information with the vendor, purchaser (including any prospective purchaser) as well with their respective agents, contractors, legal, financial and other advisors in relation to or in connection with the sale of the property;
• to ensure the safety and security of vendors and existing occupiers and of each of their properties in connection with auctions and the inspection of any property by prospective purchasers;
• to comply with any applicable law in connection with the sale of the property;
• to confirm whether the vendor or purchaser is registered for GST purposes;
• to tell you about any other property that we are selling or any other service that we provide (this is referred to as direct marketing), unless you tell us not to;

Strata Management

• to identify and/or verify the identity of any owner of a strata title lot in a strata scheme we manage or propose to manage;
• to liaise and exchange information with any owner of a strata title lot in a strata scheme as well as their agents, tenants, contractors, legal, financial and other advisors;
• to ensure the safety and security of owners, existing occupiers and users of common areas of any strata title lot in a strata scheme;
• to comply with any applicable law in connection with the management of the relevant strata scheme;
• to confirm whether the owners corporation or body corporate is registered for GST purposes; and
• to tell you about any other strata scheme that we or a related body corporate are managing or any other service that we or a related body corporate provide (this is referred to as direct marketing), unless you tell us not to;

Automated Decision Making (ADM)

• to be used in the operation of ADM (e.g. computer programs) to make various decisions that may impact our services, including but not limited to a client’s rights under an arrangement and access to a significant service or support;
• personal information such as your name, address and contact details may be used in the operation of ADM
• ADM may involve the use of artificial intelligence and automation technology to engage with a client’s contacts and to obtain more leads

Generally

• to provide our services to you;
• to engage third parties in relation to any products and services;
• to provide statistical and other information to the Real Estate Institute of New South Wales;
• to allow us to run our business efficiently and to perform administrative and operational tasks;
• to promote and market our business;
• to identify other products and services that you may be interested in;
• to improve our services;
• to provide information that we believe may be of interest or relevance to you;
• to communicate with you as we may consider necessary;
• to perform analytics on performance and engagement with our online resources;
• to comply with any dispute resolution, applicable laws or any other legal process;
• to act on behalf of clients in accordance with any agency agreement and to comply with our obligations under such agreement;
• in order to update our records and your contact details;
• to operate controlled money accounts;
• if we enter into or propose to enter into any agreement or arrangement with any party for the purpose of, or in connection with, the acquisition of our business (including any part of our business that includes personal information), then we may provide that party (including its legal, financial and other professional advisers) with personal information in relation to or in connection with those arrangements; and
• any other purpose to which you have consented.

How we share your personal information

Sharing personal information with third parties
We may seek and use personal information about you from, and use or disclose personal information about you to, third parties in relation to or in connection with the provision of our services including in respect of a potential or actual rental of a property, the sale and purchase of a property or other business or administrative functions for our real estate and/or strata agency. These third parties may include:

• your representatives, lawyers, settlement agents, accountants, brokers;
• any conjunction, co-listing, buyers’ or other property agents that act on your behalf in connection with the rental, leasing, sale and purchase of property;
• auctioneers;
• your financier including any mortgage brokers that may be assisting you with any existing mortgage loan or application in relation to the sale or purchase of property;
• valuers, surveyors, insurers, re-insurers, claim assessors and investigators;
• financial institutions including deposit taking institutions;
• if you are a tenant, any prospective tenant, your referees, including your employer or other individuals to confirm your identity and/or other details about you in any rental application that you submit;
• organisations in and associated with debt collecting;
• law enforcement agencies;
• government and/or regulatory bodies including (without limitation) the NSW Land and Property Management Authority, Australian Taxation Office, the NSW Office of State Revenue. In many cases, these organisations may share information with foreign authorities;
• mailing houses and telemarketing agencies that assist may us to communicate with you;
• if we enter into, or propose to enter into, any agreement or arrangement with any party for the purpose of, or in connection with, the acquisition of our business (including any part of our business that includes personal information), that party (including its legal, financial and other professional advisers) to provide personal information in relation to or in connection with those arrangements; and
• service providers including IT and data consultants, agents, contractors and advisers that assist us to conduct our business.

Sharing personal information with related companies
We may share personal information about you with our related companies for any of the purposes described above.

Sharing personal information outside of Australia
We may store information about you in cloud or other types of networked or electronic storage. As electronic or networked storage can be accessed from various countries through an internet connection, it is not always practical to know in which country personal information about you may be held.

To the extent that we can identify the countries to which we transfer information, they include the following countries as at the date of this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice :

• the United States
• the Philippines
• Sweden

Where appropriate, we use secure transmission facilities to protect any personal information being transmitted overseas. However, no transmission of information over the internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure and, to the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not warrant the security of any information transmitted to us over the internet.

Please note that in some cases, countries to which we transfer information may not have laws or binding schemes that have the effect of protecting your information in a way that overall is at least substantially similar to the way in which the Privacy Principles protect your information, and there may not be any mechanism or binding scheme that you can access to take legal action to enforce legal protections.

In respect of our website, analytics and tracking may occur in respect of our website views, click-throughs from email alerts, text messages and smart forms. Such analytics and tracking are currently facilitated by third-party providers through Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics and Adfenix Analytics. All collected data is stored in Amazon Web Services in Australian data centres. We do not directly store any of the analytics data collected by any of these providers and each provider manages its own data handling and data storage arrangements which means that the location of such data may vary.

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that any overseas organisation that receives your personal information will comply with the Act.

If you do not provide personal information
If you do not provide your personal information to us, it may not be possible for us to provide you with the service that you have requested or applied for, for example:

• if personal information is not disclosed in a rental application by a prospective tenant, then we may be unable to process the application and/or submit it to the landlord for their consideration or approval. If you enter into a rental or lease agreement, you will need to be identified and your personal information will be included in the rental or lease agreement;
• if personal information is not disclosed by a vendor in connection with the sale of their property, we will not be able to verify that they are the owner of the property and/or to advertise and market the property;
• if personal information is not disclosed by a prospective purchaser at an open inspection, then we may not be able to admit them into the inspection;
• if personal information is not disclosed by a prospective purchaser at an auction, then we will not be able to register them as a bidder;
• if personal information is not disclosed by an owner in connection with the management of their strata scheme or their property, then we will not be able to verify that they are the owner of the property and manage the strata scheme; and
• to let you know about other services we provide that might be suitable for your needs (unless you opt out of this by telling us that you do not wish to receive such information as contemplated in this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice).

Personal information about other people
If you give us personal information about any other person in relation to, or in connection with, the rental/lease or sale of any property:

• we are reasonably entitled to assume that you have sought their prior consent to the disclosure of such personal information to us;
• we have collected their personal information for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice;
• we may exchange their personal information with other organisations for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice;
• we will handle their personal information in the same way as set out in this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice and they can:
  • access or request a copy of this Privacy Policy and Collection Notice; or
  • access the personal information we hold about them.

Anonymity and pseudonymity
Given the nature of our services, we are not always able to deal with people who do not wish to identify themselves. This will be particularly the case when we are proposing to, or we do, act for a vendor or a landlord in relation to either the sale or rental/lease of any property. This will also apply where we are also dealing with actual or prospective tenants for any rental property that we manage.

Further, we are not able to allow people through any property inspections who do not wish to identify themselves as this can create security and other concerns for the property owner (among other considerations).

However, where possible, we can provide information of a general nature such as, for example, we can respond to general telephone and related enquiries about a rental/lease or sale property to unidentified individuals. Of course, if an individual makes an enquiry by email or other electronic or written methods then there is every possibility that the mode of communication may inevitably identify those individuals.

Information security and confidentiality
Any and all information collected in accordance with our website will be kept confidential. We may hold your personal information in electronic form and/or in hard copy and will take reasonable steps to protect all information which we hold (including any sensitive information) from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
We will endeavour to take all reasonable steps to secure your information transmitted to our website. However, if you are submitting personal details or other information over the internet which you wish to remain private, there is a possibility that information you submit may be observed by a third party while in transit.

Marketing and opt-out
We maintain a list of email addresses to which we send marketing and promotional information in respect of which you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” button included in any email correspondence from us to you. We may also use the information, including personal information (excluding sensitive information), provided by users of our website for marketing and research purposes, to analyse and improve products, benefits and services and to inform users of products, services and benefits provided by us, our related entities, suppliers or sponsors which we consider may be of value or interest to you, unless you tell us, or has previously told us, not to. We will not use your sensitive information for these purposes without your consent.

You can contact us at any time if you no longer wish to receive direct marketing information or offers from us. We will process your request as soon as reasonably practicable after receipt of the request.

Cookies
A cookie is an electronic token that is passed to a user’s browser which passes it back to the server whenever a page is sent to a user. Our servers may generate cookies which are used to keep track of the pages that users have accessed while using our website. The cookie also allows data to be inputted into a form or template and temporarily stored until a user chooses to save that form or template, such information includes the page you visit on our website, your browser, device and IP address. Cookies generally remain on a user’s computer even after an internet session has ended and the computer is rebooted. The cookie can be read by the server that placed it there during a subsequent visit to that same server. Their exact behavior is server specific.

If you do not want to allow this, you can remove cookies from your device by changing your browser settings. This may, however, hinder our website’s functionality.

Accessing your Personal Information
Unless we are entitled to withhold access to your personal information (there are various reasons why this may be the case), you have the right to request access to any personal information held by us which relates to you. Any requests for access to your personal information should be made in writing to our Privacy Officer (details specified below). You also have the right to request the correction of any personal information we have which relates to you that is inaccurate, incomplete, irrelevant, misleading or out-of-date.

Starr Partners Privacy Officer

Starr Partners Head Office
Address: Suite 3.21/29-31 Lexington Drive, Bella Vista NSW 2153
Email Address: admin@starrpartners.com.au

If you require any further information about our management of personal information, please contact us.

Complaints
If you have a complaint concerning the way we use or maintain your personal information, please contact us by emailing Starr Partners Head Office at admin@starrpartners.com.au following which we will investigate your complaint. We may request additional information and will communicate the outcome of the complaint to you.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of our internal process, you may lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (www.oaic.gov.au).

The Office of the Information Commissioner can be contacted as follows: