1. We Respect Your Privacy
(a) COTA Australia Ltd respects your right to privacy and is committed to safeguarding the privacy of our supporters and website visitors. We recognise the essential right of individuals to have their information administered in ways which they would reasonably expect – protected on one hand and made accessible to them on the other. These privacy values are reflected in and supported by our core values and philosophies and inform policy which sets out how we collect and treat your personal information.
(b) We adhere to the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
(c) “Personal information” is information we hold which is identifiable as being about you. This includes information such as your name, email address, identification number, or any other type of information that can reasonably identify an individual, either directly or indirectly.
(d) “Sensitive information” is information such as your health status, cultural background, or lived experience where relevant to our research, advocacy, or engagement activities.
(e) You may contact us in writing at Suite 13.03, Level 13, 470 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000 for further information about this Privacy Policy.
2. What Information is Collected
(a) COTA Australia Ltd will collect only information by lawful and fair means which the organisation requires for our primary function. We receive and store personal information you submit to our website, provide to us directly or give to us in other forms.
(b) You may provide basic information such as your name, phone number, address and email address to enable us to send you information, provide updates and process your product or service order.
(c) We may collect additional information at other times, including but not limited to, when you provide feedback, when you provide information about your personal or business affairs, change your content or email preference, respond to surveys and/or promotions, provide financial or credit card information, or communicate with our customer support.
(d) We may collect sensitive information such as your health status, cultural background, or lived experience where relevant to our research, advocacy, or engagement activities. This information is only collected with your informed and voluntary consent.
(e) Additionally, we may also collect any other information you provide while interacting with us.
3. How We Collect Your Personal Information
(a) COTA Australia Ltd collects personal information from you in a variety of ways, including when you interact with us electronically or in person, when you access our website, when you fill in a survey or participate in a consultation and when we engage in business activities with you. We may receive personal information from third parties. If we do, we will protect it as set out in this Privacy Policy.
(b) Where it is lawful and practicable, individuals have the option of not identifying themselves or of using a pseudonym when dealing with us.
(c) By providing us with personal or sensitive information, you consent to the supply of that information subject to the terms of this Privacy Policy.
4. How We Use Your Personal Information
(a) COTA Australia Ltd may use personal information collected from you to provide you with information about our products or services. We may also make you aware of new and additional products, services, policy information and opportunities available to you.
(b) COTA Australia Ltd will use personal information only for the purposes that you consent to. This may include to:
(i) provide you with products and services during the usual course of our business activities;
(ii) administer our business activities;
(iii) for deidentified advocacy;
(iv) manage, research and develop our services;
(v) provide you with information about our products and services;
(vi) communicate with you by a variety of measures including, but not limited to, by telephone, email, sms or mail; and
(vii) investigate any complaints.
If you withhold your personal information, it may not be possible for us to provide you with our products and services or for you to fully access our website.
(c) Where unsolicited information is received, if the personal information could have been collected in the usual way, it will be treated normally. If it could not have been, then it will be destroyed.
(d) We may disclose your personal information to comply with a legal requirement, such as a law, regulation, court order, subpoena, warrant, legal proceedings or in response to a law enforcement agency request.
(e) If there is a change of control in our business or a sale or transfer of business assets, we reserve the right to transfer to the extent permissible at law our user databases, together with any personal information and non-personal information contained in those databases.
5. Disclosure of Your Personal Information
(a) COTA Australia Ltd may disclose your personal information to any of our employees, officers, insurers, professional advisers, agents, suppliers or subcontractors insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy policy. COTA Australia Ltd employees are required to respect the confidentiality of personal information and the privacy of individuals.
(b) If we do disclose your personal information to a third party, we will protect it in accordance with this privacy policy.
(c) COTA Australia Ltd has in place security and steps to protect the personal information we hold from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification, interference or disclosure.
(d) We may also share your information with trusted partner organisations when jointly delivering campaigns, events, or services, always in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
6. Hosting and International Data Transfers
(a) Information that we collect is predominantly held in Australian storage facilities but may from time to time be stored, processed or transferred between sites located in countries outside of Australia. These may include but are not limited to third parties who are necessary to assist us in operating our website, providing your requested services and products and for surveys we conduct.
(b) In some cases, your personal or sensitive information may be disclosed to overseas recipients who may not be subject to privacy obligations equivalent to the Australian Privacy Principles. By providing your information to us, you expressly consent to this disclosure, having been informed of this possibility.
(c) Before disclosing personal information to overseas recipients, we take reasonable steps to ensure they do not breach the APPs, including reviewing their privacy practices and entering into binding data protection agreements where required.
(d) The hosting facilities for our website are located in Australia. We do have some off-site data use by third parties such as Action Network which is based in the United States of America and is used for Engagement purposes. (see https://actionnetwork.org/privacy/ for their policy).Information held by them will be protected by appropriate safeguards, these include one or more of the following: the use of standard data protection clauses adopted or approved by the European Commission which you can obtain from the European Commission Website; assurance that the providers are as compliant with privacy protection as they are legally required to be and as per their published policies which can be obtained from the relevant providers.
(e) The majority of our Suppliers and Contractors are located in Australia with a few software providers, for example SurveyMonkey, Microsoft 365, Stripe, Issuu, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel being in the United States of America. Information held by them will be protected by appropriate safeguards, these include one or more of the following: the use of standard data protection clauses adopted or approved by the European Commission which you can obtain from the European Commission Website; assurance that the providers are as compliant with privacy protection as they are legally required to be and as per their published policies which can be obtained from the relevant providers.
(f) You acknowledge that personal or sensitive data that you submit for publication through our website or services may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use (or misuse) of such personal data by others.
7. Security of Your Personal Information
(a) COTA Australia Ltd is committed to ensuring that the information you provide to us is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure information and protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.
(b) If we were to employ data processors to process personal information on our behalf, we would only do so on the basis that such data processors comply with the requirements of the Australian Privacy Principles and that have adequate technical measures in place to protect personal information against unauthorised use, loss and theft.
(c) The transmission and exchange of information is carried out at your own risk. We cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us or receive from us. Although we take measures to safeguard against unauthorised disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that personal information that we collect will not be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.
(d) We only retain personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected or to comply with legal obligations. Unless requested otherwise, we may retain your data indefinitely.
8. Access to Your Personal Information
(a) You may request details of personal information that we hold about you in accordance with the provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). If you would like a copy of the information which we hold about you or believe that any information we hold on you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, please email us at cota@cota.org.au.
(b) We reserve the right to refuse to provide you with information that we hold about you in certain circumstances as set out in the Privacy Act or any other applicable law.
9. Complaints About Privacy
(a) If you have any complaints about our privacy practices, please feel free to send in details of your complaints to cota@cota.org.au.
(b) We take complaints very seriously and will respond within a reasonable time after receiving written notice of your complaint.
(c) If we then have not dealt satisfactorily with your concerns we will meet with you to discuss further. If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint within 30 days from this meeting then you can refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner via www.oaic.gov.au.
10. Changes to Privacy Policy
(a) Please be aware that we may change this Privacy Policy in the future. We may modify this Policy at any time, in our sole discretion and all modifications will be effective immediately upon our posting of the modifications on our website or notice board. Please check back from time to time to review our Privacy Policy.
11. Website
(a) When you visit our website
When you come to our website (www.cota.org.au), we may collect certain information such as browser type, operating system, website visited immediately before coming to our site, etc. This information is used in an aggregated manner to analyse how people use our site, such that we can improve our service.
(b) Cookies
We may use cookies on our website. Cookies are very small files which a website uses to identify you when you come back to the site and to store details about your use of the site. Cookies are not malicious programs that access or damage your computer. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but you can choose to reject cookies by changing your browser settings. However, this may prevent you from taking full advantage of our website. Our website may from time-to-time use cookies to analyse website traffic and help us provide a better website visitor experience. In addition, cookies may be used to serve relevant ads to website visitors through third party services such as Google AdWords. These ads may appear on this website or other websites you visit.
(c) Third party sites
Our site may from time-to-time have links to other websites not owned or controlled by us. These links are meant for your convenience only. Links to third party websites do not constitute sponsorship or endorsement or approval of these websites. Please be aware that COTA Australia Ltd is not responsible for the privacy practises of other such websites. We encourage our users to be aware, when they leave our website, to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personal identifiable information.
12. Consent to the Collection of Sensitive Information
(a) By participating in our surveys, events, or consultations, you consent to the collection, storage, and use of any sensitive information you voluntarily provide, in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
13. Electronic Communications and Consent
(a) We only send email newsletters and promotional content with your explicit consent, which you provide when signing up via our website or participating in a campaign or consultation. Every email we send includes an option to unsubscribe option in accordance with the Spam Act 2003. You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at cota@cota.org.au or clicking “unsubscribe” in any of our messages.
14. Effective date
This policy is effective from 1 April 2025.