Privacy Policy

GENERAL

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it. We are bound by the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles.

Our Privacy Policy

Applies to Collection House Limited, and all of its subsidiaries including (but not limited to):

  • Lion Finance Pty Ltd
  • CLH Lawyers Pty Ltd
  • Midstate CreditCollect Pty Ltd
  • Cashflow Financial Advantage Pty Ltd
  • Collective Learning and Development Pty Ltd

The purpose of our Privacy Policy is to inform you about how we manage your personal information.

 

PERSONAL INFORMATION

“Personal information” means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information is true or not, and whether the information is recorded in material form or not.

OUR FUNCTIONS AND ACTIVITIES

Our functions and activities include purchasing defaulted, cancelled and/or terminated credit facilities from creditors such as banks and utility providers, acting as an agent for our clients such as banks, insurance companies and utility providers, providing accounts receivable management services for our clients and/or recovering defaulted, cancelled and/or terminated credit facilities, assisting you with financial solutions such as credit products, providing training and consulting services, recruiting staff and other related functions and activities.

Our functions and activities may require, where necessary, the disclosure of your personal information to our contractors in order to fulfil our functions and activities.

KINDS OF PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOLD

The kinds of personal information we collect and hold include:

  • your name,
  • contact details such as address and phone numbers,
  • date of birth,
  • information about your defaulted, cancelled and/or terminated credit facilities or services,
  • information about your financial circumstances such as your income and employment information,and
  • information from credit reporting bodies

SENSITIVE INFORMATION

In certain circumstances, we may collect sensitive information about you such as health information if that is relevant to your financial circumstances. We only collect sensitive information with your consent or where we are otherwise permitted to do so.

TRAINING SERVICES

If we are providing training services to you, the kinds of personal information we collect include:

  • your name,
  • contact details, and
  • information about your participation and progress in our training programs such as your assessment results.

EMPLOYMENT

If you are being considered for employment with us, the kinds of information we collect include:

  • your name,
  • contact details,
  • employment history,
  • qualifications,
  • references, and
  • background checks where necessary.

HOW WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION DIRECTLY

We collect your personal information directly from you or your authorised representative during the course of our dealings by telephone, email, fax and letter.

INDIRECTLY

We collect your personal information indirectly from you through the access to and use of services and facilities available on our website including:

  • our online customer portal,
  • cookies and
  • social media channels (including Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter).

We collect your personal information from your creditors or service providers when we:

  • purchase a defaulted, cancelled and/or terminated credit facility or service from them,
  • act on their behalf as their agent,
  • are engaged by them to manage or recover a defaulted, cancelled and/or terminated credit facility or service, or
  • are assisting you with a financial solution such assisting with a loan application.

We may collect information from credit reporting bodies or other information providers. We also collect your personal information by recording phone calls.

THIRD PARTIES

If you are a customer and we are have difficulty locating or contacting you, we may collect your personal information by making discreet enquiries with third parties.

If necessary, we may collect information from your employer to verify your employment status and income details.

TRAINING

If we are providing training services to you, we collect your personal information from:

  • you,
  • your employer and
  • relevant government bodies.

EMPLOYMENT CANDIDATES

If you are being considered for employment with us, we collect information from:

  • you during our recruitment process,
  • recruitment agencies,
  • your referees, and
  • by undertaking necessary background checks.

We may also collect statistical and other information from our website and other websites by using cookies.

You may turn cookies off in your browser at anytime.

HOW WE HOLD YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We understand that the security of your personal information is important to you so we take steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These steps include:

  • training all of our staff on the appropriate handling of personal information; and
  • restricting access to our computer systems, physical records and premises to authorised persons; and
  • protecting our technology environment with appropriate security measures such as firewalls and encryption.

We will normally hold your information in a database.

MULTIPLE RECORDS

Should we hold multiple records of your personal information, subject to legal and contractual obligations, we will link the multiple instances of your personal information together so that we can better manage our business relationship with you when we are carrying out our functions and activities.

ARCHIVING

Personal information that is no longer needed but is required to be held is stored in a secure offsite facility.

DESTRUCTION/DE-IDENTIFICATION

We take steps to destroy or permanently de-identify personal information if it is no longer needed for any purpose. If we inadvertently come into possession of personal information that is not relevant to our functions or activities, we will destroy that information.

All information is subject to our Records Retention and Destruction Policy.

The internet is not a secure environment. If you use the internet to send us any information, including your email address, it is sent at your own risk.

PURPOSES THAT WE COLLECT, HOLD, USE AND DISCLOSE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information so that we can undertake our functions and activities efficiently and effectively, including:

  • administering our relationship with you and responding to enquiries;
  • processing applications for employment;
  • providing and administrating defaulted, cancelled and/or terminated credit facility collection services and legal services;
  • meeting legal or other regulatory obligations imposed on us;
  • auditing and managing the usage of our website;
  • to update our records and keep your contact details up to date;
  • to process and respond to any complaint made by you;
  • by engaging contractors to carry out a function or activity for us, and
  • to comply with any law, rule, regulation, lawful and binding determination, decision or direction of a regulator, or other governmental authority.

DIRECT MARKETING

We may undertake direct marketing to you of products and services that may be of interest to you. If you do not want your personal information used for direct marketing purposes, please contact our Resolutions Team to opt-out.

All contractors are under Agreement and are required to comply with the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) when fulfilling their functions and activities.

OUR WEBSITE

When you visit our website we may send a ‘cookie’ to your computer. A cookie is a small message given to your web browser by our web server. Your browser stores the message in a text file and the message is then sent back to our web server each time your browser requests a page from our web server.

We make limited use of cookies on our website. We may use cookies to measure usage sessions accurately and to gain a clear picture of which areas of our website attract traffic. We may also use cookies to improve the functionality of our website.

When cookies are used on this site, they are used to store information relating to your visit such as a unique identifier or a value to indicate whether you have seen a web page. We may use session and permanent cookies. They are used to distinguish your internet browser from the thousands of other browsers.

Most internet browsers are set up to accept cookies. If you do not wish to receive cookies, you may be able to change the settings of your browser to refuse all cookies or to notify you each time a cookie is sent to your computer, giving you the choice whether to accept it or not.

As our website is linked to the internet and the internet is inherently insecure, we cannot provide any assurance regarding the security of transmission of information you communicate to us online. We also cannot guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the internet. Accordingly, any personal information or other information that you transmit to us online is transmitted at your own risk.

ACCESSING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

You can request access to your personal information by submitting a completed Personal Information Request Form and a copy of your driver’s license or another form of government identification document to our Resolutions Team. The Personal Information Request Form is available on our website or by contacting our Resolutions Team.

We will provide you with a copy of your personal information within a reasonable period after the request is made, usually within 30 days. In some cases, we may charge a reasonable fee to provide access to your personal information, but we will never charge you a fee to make a request. If a fee will apply, we will advise you before we provide access.

In certain circumstances we are permitted to withhold or limit access to your personal information. If this happens, we will inform you of the reasons for this where possible.

In certain circumstances you may have the right to access your personal information under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 by making a Freedom of Information request.

SEEKING CORRECTION OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, up-to-date, complete, relevant and not misleading. If you believe the personal information we hold about you is not correct, please contact our Resolutions Team. We will provide you with a copy of your personal information within a reasonable period after the request is made, usually within 30 days.

If we are unable to correct your personal information, we will advise you of this in writing and provide the reason.

MAKING A COMPLAINT

If you have any concerns about how we have managed your personal information, you can:

  • speak with the Customer Service Officer managing your matter; or
  • request to speak with a manager or our Resolutions Team at anytime; or
  • contact our Resolutions Team directly; or
  • contact the relevant External Dispute Resolution scheme (if applicable); or
  • contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

RESOLUTIONS TEAM – CONTACT DETAILS

Email: resolutions@collectionhouse.com.au
Phone:  1800 173 355
Fax:  (07) 3831 6655
Mail:  Resolutions Team – Collection House Limited
PO Box 2247
Fortitude Valley BC QLD 4006

EXTERNAL DISPUTE RESOLUTION SCHEMES

For Collection House Limited, the applicable External Dispute Resolution scheme is Financial Ombudsman Service Limited (FOS):

Website:  www.fos.org.au
Phone:  1300 78 08 08

For Lion Finance Pty Ltd, Cashflow Financial Advantage Pty Ltd and Midstate CreditCollectPty Ltd, the applicable External Dispute Resolution scheme is Credit and Investment Ombudsman:

Website:  www.cio.org.au
Phone:  1800 138 422

OFFICE OF THE AUSTRALIAN INFORMATION COMMISSIONER

Website:  www.oaic.gov.au
Phone:  1300 363 992

OVERSEAS DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Most (if not all) organisations will disclose information to overseas recipients at some point. We take the necessary steps to protect your personal information when it is disclosed overseas.

We may disclose your personal information to our overseas subsidiaries in New Zealand and the Philippines.

We may disclose your personal information to our contractors or service providers in overseas countries including the United States, New Zealand and the Philippines. If we have reason to believe that an individual is located overseas, we may disclose their personal information to our overseas agent in that country.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

From time to time we may review and update our Privacy Policy. We will publish the current version on our website.