Privacy Policy and Credit Reporting Policy

Brickworks Limited and its related bodies corporate (we, our, us) recognise the importance of protecting the privacy and the rights of individuals in relation to their personal information.  This document is our privacy policy and credit reporting policy and it tells you how we collect and manage your personal information.  

This policy also includes information about your rights in relation to credit-related information, including access and correction, and what can happen if we provide information about you to a credit reporting body (CRB).

We respect your rights to privacy under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Act) and we comply with all of the Act’s requirements in respect of the collection, management, and disclosure of your personal information.

1. What is your personal information?

When used in this privacy policy and credit reporting policy, the term “personal information” has the meaning given to it in the Act.  In general terms, it is any information that can be used to personally identify you.  This may include your name, address, telephone number, email address and profession or occupation.  If the information we collect personally identifies you, or you are reasonably identifiable from it, the information will be considered personal information.

In this policy, “credit-related information” means credit information, credit eligibility information and credit provider (CP) derived information as those terms are defined in the Act.

2. What personal information do we collect and hold?

We may collect the following types of personal information:

• name;
• mailing or street address;
• email address;
• telephone number;
• facsimile number;
• age or birth date;
• profession, occupation or job title;
• contractor qualifications and license information;
• customer bank account details to process any refund or credit;
• details of the products and services you have purchased from us or which you have enquired about, together with any additional information necessary to deliver those products and services and to respond to your enquiries;
• your employment-related information if you apply for a position with us, which may include pre-employment medical information;
• any additional information relating to you that you provide to us directly through our websites or indirectly through the use of our websites or online presence, through our representatives or otherwise; and
• information you provide to us through our service centre, customer surveys or visits by our representatives from time to time.

We may collect the following types of credit-related information:

• identification information about you (which generally includes your name, date of birth, gender, current and previous addresses, the name of your current employer and your driver’s licence number);
• consumer credit liability information about you;
• repayment history information;
• a statement that an information request has been made about you by a credit provider, mortgage insurer or trade insurer;
• the type of consumer credit or commercial credit, and the amount of credit sought in an application;
• court proceedings information about you;
• personal insolvency information about you;
• new arrangement information about you (in other words, where a debt that you owe has been varied because it was overdue);
• default information concerning a payment owed by you as a borrower or your guarantor in connection with consumer credit that remains overdue for more than 60 days; and
• payment information about you.

If you apply for credit with Brickworks or any of its related bodies corporate, then we may also obtain information from credit reference bureau’s including Building Trade Credit Bureau, Accrex, NSW Corporate Credit, and Building Industry Credit Bureau and other credit providers or from your nominated trade references regarding your creditworthiness.

If we obtain credit-related information about you from a CRB, we may derive information from it that has a bearing on your credit-worthiness or could be used in establishing your eligibility for consumer credit. This may include information such as credit scores and assessments which we generate from the information that we receive. 

If there is another applicant named in a credit application, you may need to provide their personal information, and you warrant that the other applicant has consented to the collection of their personal information and has authorised you to provide it for the purposes for which it is being collected.

We may also collect some information that is not personal information because it does not identify you or anyone else.  For example, we may collect anonymous answers to surveys or aggregated information about how users use our website.

3. How do we collect your personal information?

We collect your personal information directly from you unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so.  When collecting personal information from you, we may collect in ways including:

• through your access and use of our website;
• during conversations between you and our representatives; 
• when you complete an application or purchase order; 
• through our contractor management safety system; or
• when you apply for a position with us;
• when you register to attend a Brickworks event.

We may also collect personal information from third parties, such as customer nominated trade references, credit reporting agencies, law enforcement agencies and other government entities.

We are also required to collect information in accordance with the following laws:

the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth), which requires us to make inquiries about you when assessing an application for credit made by you; and the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth), under which we may need to collect personal information about you to record a security interest on the Personal Property Securities Register.

Cookies

In some cases we may also collect your personal information through the use of cookies.  When you access our website, we may send a “cookie” (which is a small summary file containing a unique ID number) to your computer.  This enables us to recognise your computer and greet you each time you visit our website without bothering you with a request to register.  It also enables us to keep track of products or services you view so that, if you consent, we can send you news about those products or services.  We also use cookies to measure traffic patterns, to determine which areas of our website have been visited and to measure transaction patterns in the aggregate.  We use this to research our users’ habits so that we can improve our online products and services.  If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set your browser so that your computer does not accept them.

We may log IP addresses (that is, the electronic addresses of computers connected to the internet) to analyse trends, administer the website, track users movements, and gather broad demographic information.

4. What happens if we can’t collect your personal information?

If you do not provide us with the personal information described above, some or all of the following may happen:

• we may not be able to provide the requested products or services to you, either to the same standard or at all;
• we may not be able to provide you with information about products and services that you may want, including information about discounts, sales or special promotions; 
• we may be unable to tailor the content of our websites to your preferences and your experience of our websites may not be as enjoyable or useful; 
• we may not be able to engage you to provide services; or
• if you are applying for a position with us, we may be unable to consider your application for a position.

5. For what purposes do we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information?

We collect personal information about you so that we can perform our business activities and functions and to provide best possible quality of customer service.

We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for the following purposes:

• to assess your creditworthiness to provide products and services to you on credit terms;
• to administer and manage your credit arrangement and record security interests on the Personal Property Securities Register;
• provide products and services to you and to send communications requested by you;
• to answer enquiries and provide information or advice about existing and new products or services;
• to provide you with access to protected areas of our website;
• to assess the performance of the website and to improve the operation of the website;
• to assess your suitability to act as a contractor for Brickworks Limited and its related bodies corporate;

to conduct business processing functions including providing personal information to our related bodies corporate, contractors, service providers or other third parties;

for the administrative, marketing (including direct marketing), planning, product or service development, quality control and research purposes of Brickworks Limited, its related bodies corporate, contractors or service providers;

• to update our records and keep your contact details up to date;
• if you have applied for a position with us, to evaluate your application;
• to process and respond to any complaint made by you; and
• to comply with any law, rule, regulation, lawful and binding determination, decision or direction of a regulator, or in co-operation with any governmental authority of any country.

We collect, hold, use and disclose your credit-related information for the following purposes:

• to enable us to develop, administer and manage our services and businesses;
• manage the products we provide, as well as your account with us;
• to engage a CRB to conduct a credit and reference check;
• to assess and monitor your creditworthiness;
• for billing purposes and collection of debts;
• to provide information to a CRBs as permitted by law;
• to advise credit providers of the status of your agreement with us, in circumstances where you are in default with credit providers;
• to deal with complaints;
• to enforce our rights when you are in breach, including debt recovery and other enforcement; and
• complying with the law as authorised or as required.

Your personal information will not be shared, sold, rented or disclosed other than as described in this privacy policy and credit reporting policy. 

6. To whom may we disclose your information?

We may disclose your personal information to:

• our employees, related bodies corporate, contractors or service providers for the purposes of operation of our website or our business, fulfilling requests by you, and to otherwise provide products and services to you including, without limitation, web hosting providers, IT systems administrators, mailing houses, couriers, payment processors, data entry service providers, electronic network administrators, debt collectors and professional advisors such as accountants, solicitors, business advisors and consultants;
• suppliers and other third parties with whom we have commercial relationships, for business, marketing, and related purposes; 
• a credit reference agency (if you have applied for credit from us), for the purposes of obtaining a credit report about you or to allow the credit reporting agency to maintain a credit information file about you;
• CRBs, including Equifax (https://www.equifax.com.au/) (who use your driver’s licence number to authenticate your identity);  and
• any organisation for any authorised purpose with your express consent.

We may combine or share any information that we collect from you with information collected by any of our related bodies corporate (within Australia).

If we disclose your credit information to a CRB:

The CRB may include the information in reports provided to credit providers to assist them to assess your credit worthiness; and

If you fail to meet your payment obligations in relation to consumer credit or commit a serious credit infringement, we may be entitled to disclose this to the CRB.

“Brickworks” may share your personal information with other parties who play an important role in helping us run our business and provide products and services to you. These include our suppliers, agents, partners and contractors. Your information is mainly used for the distribution of email campaigns, surveys and events. Brickworks and its third parties maintains your data in compliance with Australia’s SPAM ACT 2003 and Australian Privacy Provisions. All data is maintained within Australia and in some cases, we share your information with organisations that may be based outside Australia. We take steps to ensure that they meet the same privacy requirements we place on ourselves. Your data is governed by Australian jurisdiction and where stipulated data is encrypted in transit. We use a combination of technical solutions, security controls and internal processes to help us protect your personal information from unauthorised access and disclosure. We’re constantly updating our security measures. You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you or request us to delete it permanently.