Privacy statement
Epsom Sand & Soil Trading Pty Ltd (ABN 48 102 350 738) (ESS) understands that privacy is important to our customers. Protecting your personal information is therefore important to us.
This policy explains how ESS handles your personal information and complies with the requirements of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act). The policy deals with ESS’ collection and handling of personal information that is covered by the Privacy Act. It does not cover personal information that is not covered by the Privacy Act.
What is ‘personal information’?
Personal information is any information about you that identifies you or by which your identity can be reasonably determined.
Collection of personal information
ESS collects and holds personal information from its customers, employees, contractors and other people. ESS collects and holds this information when it is necessary for business purposes.
Personal information includes names, addresses, job titles, driver’s licence details, financial institution details, phone numbers and email addresses. In the course of providing goods and services to our customers, we may collect more detailed personal information, including information about your creditworthiness and credit card details.
Personal information is usually provided to us either directly by our customers and other individuals such as job applicants. For instance, personal information is obtained when we first deal with you and we record your name, address and phone number. We may collect personal information during a phone call or in-person meeting or via an application or other form completed by you. We also collect personal information during subsequent face to face meetings, from email messages and telephone conversations, and from third parties.
How we use your personal information
ESS only uses your personal information for the purpose for which it was collected and to offer and provide goods and services that are connected to that purpose.
The purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information include:
- to provide our goods and services to you;
- to respond to your requests;
- to maintain contact with you;
- to keep you informed of the goods and services we offer;
- for general management and reporting purposes, such as invoicing and account management;
- for recruiting purposes;
- for purposes relating to the employment of our personnel and providing services to our employees;
- for other purposes related to our business, such as auditing, business planning, billing, record keeping, compliance with legislation, and for the purpose of potential legal proceedings.
We may collect, hold or use information about you to market our services, including by email. When you become our customer, you consent to receiving marketing email. However, you may opt out of marketing services at any time by emailing admin@epsomsandandsoil.com.au.
Consequences of not being able to collect your personal information
If we are not able to collect your personal information, we will not be able to provide you with a full range of our goods and services. For instance, we will not be able to extend credit to you without accurate and complete information about you. If you are a job applicant and we cannot collect basic personal information about you, we will not be able to consider your job application.
Due to the nature of our business, it is impractical for us to deal with you anonymously.
Security of personal information
ESS only collects information in a way that is lawful, fair and not unreasonably intrusive.
We will endeavour to take reasonable precautions to ensure the security of your personal information, whether electronically or in hard copy, from risks such as loss or unauthorised access, destruction, misuse, modification or disclosure. We do not retain your credit card details on our file or in any database. We retain your personal information electronically on-site or in hard copy files on-site. We do not use cloud storage.
ESS aims to achieve industry best practice in the security of personal information which it holds. Wherever possible, we destroy your personal information after seven years or once there is no longer a legal or business need for us to retain it, by shredding your documents and deleting your electronic files. Sometimes, however, it is impossible to irrevocably destroy or de-identify information completely, because such information is intermingled with data which we are legally obliged to retain. An example of this is when we archive an electronic file but the information in the file remains on the hard drive of a computer which we use to store other files. It is not possible to completely sanitise the computer’s hard drive in such circumstances. Nevertheless, we use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that such data is not readily accessible or identifiable.
Will we provide your personal information to anyone else?
ESS does not disclose personal information to other people or organisations unless:
- use or disclosure is permitted by this policy;
- we believe it is necessary to provide you with a product or service which you have requested (or in the case of employees, disclosure is necessary in managing you in your role at ESS);
- you give consent; or
- such disclosure is required by law.
ESS sometimes uses external service providers to help us maximise the quality and efficiency of our services and business operations, and personal information may sometimes be disclosed to those contractors or service providers. For example, personal information may be disclosed to IT service providers. We require our service providers to adhere to our privacy policy and not to keep this information or use it for any unauthorised purposes.
We do not sell to or trade personal information with third parties.
What is a government identifier and how do we use them?
A government identifier is a Commonwealth government or Commonwealth government agency designated identification number such as your Tax File Number (TFN).
Although at times ESS may request or hold details regarding certain Government assigned identification numbers (such as when we obtain TFNs from staff at the commencement of their employment) we do not use such information as identifiers of our own.
We only use government identifiers for purposes required by law, such as when we supply your TFN to the Australian Taxation Office.
Does your personal information leave Australia?
We do not disclose your personal information to overseas recipients.
Sensitive information
Some types of personal information are particularly sensitive and have special protection under the Privacy Act. Sensitive information is information about your:
- racial or ethnic origin; or
- political opinions; or
- membership of a political association; or
- religious beliefs or affiliations; or
- philosophical beliefs; or
- membership of a professional or trade association; or
- membership of a trade union; or
- sexual preferences or practices; or
- criminal record; or
- health information.
ESS only collects, uses or discloses this information about you when it is necessary and as allowed by law.
Website
ESS may also collect personal information from you via its websites, such as www.epsomsandandsoil.com.au.
Cookies may be used on some areas of our websites. A cookie is a small software application which allows a website to recognise a previous user and to observe how a user navigates within a website. Cookies are now used by many websites. ESS uses cookies to improve the navigational experience of visitors to our websites and to make them easier to use.
If you are concerned about cookies, most browsers now recognise when a cookie is offered and permit you to opt out of receiving it. If you are not sure whether your browser has this capability, you should check with the software manufacturer or your internet service provider. In most cases, you can refuse a cookie and still fully navigate the ESS website.
In order to properly manage our websites, we may log certain statistics about the users of the sites, for example the users’ domains and browser types. None of this information specifically identifies an individual and it is used solely to ensure that our websites present the best possible navigational experience for visitors.
If you log onto the website and read or download information, our internet service provider and web hosting provider will record your server address, domain name, the date and time of your visit to our website, the pages viewed, and the information downloaded. This information is used for measuring statistical site performance and website development purposes only.
A link to a third party’s website should not be construed as an endorsement by either ESS or that third party of the other or its products and services. ESS makes no representations or warranties regarding how user data is stored or used on third-party servers. We recommend that you review the privacy policy of any third-party site linked from our site to determine the security of your personal data.
How we handle email
We will retain any email message that you send us if we have a legal requirement to do so, if we need to retain the email in order to provide goods or services to you or if you are our supplier or employee. Emails sent to or from us are monitored for quality control, systems administration and legal compliance purposes.
Access and correction of your personal information
ESS will take reasonable steps to keep any personal information up to date. Under the Privacy Act you may access information that we hold about you. There are some exceptions to this which are detailed in the Act.
When you request access to personal information, we may require you to provide some form of identification (such as a driver licence or passport) so we can verify that you are the person to whom the information relates. In some cases, we may also request an administrative fee to cover the cost of access. If your personal information has been archived, we may charge a fee for retrieval of your file.
You have the right to ask us to correct information about you which is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. In most cases, access to your personal information is available to you at no charge by contacting ESS on the following:
Phone: 03 5448 8171
Fax: 03 5448 8174
In writing: The Privacy Officer
Epsom Sand & Soil Pty Ltd
452 Epsom-Barnadown Road
Epsom VIC 3551
Email: admin@epsomsandandsoil.com.au
Requests for access to personal information will be handled as quickly as possible. We will endeavour to process any request for access within 30 days of having received the request.
If you have any questions or comments about this privacy policy, or you wish to lodge a complaint about the way we have handled personal information about you, please contact ESS’ Privacy Officer at the address listed above. Any complaint should be in writing. ESS will consider the complaint and endeavour to respond to it within 14 days.
If you believe that ESS has breached the Privacy Act, you may also wish to complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. 7
The Commissioner’s details are:
Phone: 1300 363 992
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Fax: 02 9284 9666
Post: GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001.
We may amend this policy from time to time to keep up with changes in the law, technology and data security practices.
