Privacy Policy

The CreditSmart website is owned by the Australian Retail Credit Association Limited, ACN 136 340 791 (Arca). Arca 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 it tells you how we collect and manage your personal information through the CreditSmart website. This document also sets out how this website uses cookies.

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 to the collection, management and disclosure of your personal information.

What is your personal information?

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, telephone number or email address. If the information we collect personally identifies you, or you are reasonably identifiable from it, the information will be considered personal information.

What personal information do we collect and hold?

We do not generally collect personal information about you through the CreditSmart website.
However, through the ‘Contact Us’ feature of the website and/or blog, we may collect your name and email address to respond to your question or comment. Submissions made via the ‘Contact Us’ feature are auto-deleted on the first business day of the month immediately following the month in which the submission is received.

Please do not give us other personal or sensitive information when submitting feedback. You may choose to interact with us anonymously or using a pseudonym.

Further, we may also conduct consumer surveys and, in conducting those surveys, we may collect your name, age, location, email address as well as your responses to survey questions.

For what purpose do we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information?

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

to send communications requested by you via the Contact Us page on the website
to answer a question asked by you via the Contact Us page on the website.

To whom do we disclose your personal information?

We may disclose your personal information to:

our employees, related bodies corporate, contractors or service providers for the purposes of the operation of our association, including, without limitation, web hosting providers, IT systems administrators, couriers, data entry service providers, electronic network administrators, and professional advisors such as accountants, solicitors, business advisors and consultants.
any government or regulatory authority which requires us to do so.
our Australia-based service providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and SGY, in relation to the operation, development and maintenance of the CreditSmart website.

Where CreditSmart has undertaken a consumer survey, the results will be de-identified before being disclosed to any third parties.

We also take reasonable steps to protect your personal information. We restrict access to your personal information to those people or service providers who need to know that information to provide services. In addition, we train our employees about the importance of protecting the privacy and security of your information.

Do we disclose your personal information to overseas recipients?

We may disclose your personal information to overseas recipients, for example, our service providers

Microsoft, which may be hosted in countries in the Asia Pacific
Amazon Web Services (AWS) which may be hosted globally, including in United States, Netherlands, Ireland, Singapore and Hong Kong
Cvent which may be hosted in countries in Europe or in the United States

How can you access and correct your personal information?

You may request access to any personal information we hold about you at any time by contacting us (see details below). Where we hold information that you are entitled to access, we will try to provide you with suitable means of accessing it (for example, by mailing or emailing it to you). We will not charge for simply making the request and will not charge for making any corrections to your personal information.

There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to the personal information we hold. For example, we may need to refuse access if granting access would interfere with the privacy of others or if it would result in a breach of confidentiality. If that happens, we will give you written reasons for any refusal.

If you believe that personal information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you may request us to amend it. We will consider if the information requires amendment. If we do not agree that there are grounds for amendment then we will let you know.

What if you have a complaint about a breach of privacy?

If you believe that your privacy has been breached, please contact us using the contact information below and provide details of the incident so that we can investigate it.

We will attempt to confirm as appropriate with you your understanding of the conduct relevant to the complaint and what you expect as an outcome. We will inform you whether we will conduct an investigation, the name, title and contact details of the investigating officer and the estimated completion date for the investigation process.

After we have completed our enquiries, we will contact you, usually in writing, to advise the outcome and invite a response to our conclusions about the complaint. If we receive a response from you, we will assess it and advise if we have changed our view. If you are unsatisfied with the outcome, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Cookies and analytics

When you browse the CreditSmart website, we use cookies to collect anonymous traffic data about how you interact with us. A cookie is small bits of code in the form of an electronic token that is passed to your browser and your browser passes it back to the CreditSmart server whenever a page is sent to you. Cookies can only be read by the issuing server. This helps us measure how our services are used and what we can do to improve. The cookie contains no personal information about you.

We use Google Analytics (including 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. For more information on how Google uses the data collected, visit Google's (External link: Privacy Policy) and External link: Google Analytics Terms of Service. To opt out and prevent your data from being collected by External link: Google Analytics, you can download Google's opt out add-on.

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. For more information on how Google uses the data collected, visit Google's External link: Privacy Policy.

By using this website, you consent to Google processing data about you in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

Third party sites

Some pages on our websites may contain links to third-party websites, provided for information purposes. We do not endorse and have no control over the privacy practices or content of such websites. We recommend you carefully read the privacy policies of each site you visit.

Arca is also not responsible for the accuracy of information contained on third party websites and provides no warranty that those third-party website are computer-virus free. Arca disclaims all liability (including liability for negligence) for all expenses, losses, damages and costs you might incur as a result of the inaccurate or incomplete information on third party websites.

Online advertising

We may engage third parties to help us deliver our banner advertisements. These third parties may collect and use information to help us understand the websites, ie. comparison websites, that are most relevant in driving visitors to CreditSmart. The information they collect is aggregated and cannot be linked to a person.

Contacting us

If you have any questions about this policy, any concerns or complaints regarding the treatment of your privacy or a possible breach of your privacy, please contact our Privacy Officer using the details set out below.

We will treat your requests or complaints confidentially. Our representative will contact you within a reasonable time after receipt of your complaint to discuss your concerns and outline options regarding how they may be resolved. We will aim to ensure that your complaint is resolved in a timely and appropriate manner.

Please contact our Privacy Officer at:

Privacy Officer

Arca

Post: GPO Box 526, Melbourne, Victoria 3001

Phone: 61 3 9863 7859

Email: info@arca.asn.au

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may change this policy from time to time. Any updated versions of this policy will be posted on the CreditSmart website.

This Policy was last updated on 5 April 2024.