Privacy

VPTA Privacy Policy The VPTA is committed to providing you with the best possible customer experience. The VPTA is bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Crh), which sets out a number of principles concerning the privacy of individuals. These principles are contained in the VPTA Collection Notice (below). Website Collection of your personal information: There are many aspects of this site which can be viewed without providing personal information, however, for access to various customer support features you may be required to submit personally identifiable information. Sharing of your personal information: We may occasionally hire other companies to provide services on our behalf, including but not limited to handling customer support inquiries, processing transactions or customer freight shipping. Those companies will be permitted to obtain only the personal information they need to deliver the service. The VPTA takes reasonable steps to ensure that these organisations are bound by confidentiality and privacy obligations in relation to the protection of your personal information. Use of your personal information: For each visitor to reach the site, we expressively collect the following non-personally identifiable information, including but not limited to browser type, version and language, operating system, pages viewed while browsing the Site, page access times and referring website address. This collected information is used solely internally for the purpose of gauging visitor traffic, trends and delivering personalized content to you while you are at this Site. From time to time, we may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future we will use for these new purposes only, data collected from the time of the policy change forward will adhere to our updated practices. Changes to this Privacy Policy: The VPTA reserves the right to make amendments to this Privacy Policy at any time. If you have objections to the Privacy Policy, you should not access or use the Site. Accessing Your Personal Information: You have a right to access your personal information, subject to exceptions allowed by law. If you would like to do so, please let us know. You may be required to put your request in writing for security reasons. The VPTA reserves the right to charge a fee for searching for, and providing access to, your information on a per request basis. The VPTA welcomes your comments regarding this Privacy Policy. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy and would like further information, please contact us by telephone during business hours Monday to Friday. Should a person wish to access, correct, update any personal information held by the VPTA or complain about an alleged breach of the IPP’s by the VPTA he/she should notify the Executive Officer of the VPTA in writing. VPTA Collection Notice When a VPTA staff member collects personal information, or as soon as possible after collection, that staff member must take steps to ensure that the person is aware of certain mandatory information: • the organisation’s identity and contact details • the fact that the VPTA has collected the personal information – if the information was collected from a third party or the person is otherwise unaware of the collection of their personal information • whether the collection of personal information is required or authorised by law or a court/tribunal order (including the name of the law or details about the court/tribunal order) • the purposes for which the information is being collected • the main consequences if the personal information is not collected • any other person or entity to which you may disclose the personal information • that our privacy policy contains information about how the person may access and correct the information you hold about them • that our privacy policy contains information about how someone can make a complaint about a breach of the Information Privacy Principles (IPPs), and • whether the VPTA is likely to disclose personal information to overseas recipients and, if so, the countries in which those recipients are located (if it is reasonably practicable to specify the locations). Call: 1800 015 510 Post: Attn: Privacy Policy, Victorian Public Tenants Association, PO Box 4235, Fitzroy, Victoria, 3065. E-mail: admin@vpta.org.au

The VPTA is bound by the Australian Privacy Principles, as well as Victorian privacy schemes – the Information Privacy Principles and the Health Privacy Principles. To comply with these requirements, we are providing this disclaimer.

 

The Victorian Public Tenants’ Association, or VPTA, is the peak body for people who live in public housing and people on the Victorian Housing Register – the joint public and community housing waitlist.

 

You can call us between 9am and 5pm, on business days, for free using our free call number, 1800 015 510, or you can email us anytime at enquiries@vpta.org.au.

 

To assist renters, we collect personal information, such as your name, contact details and question or problem regarding your housing. Depending on the issue that the renter seeks assistance with, we may also need to collect sensitive and health information.

 

To resolve issues for renters, the VPTA will usually speak with the renters residential rental provider and may share the information you have given us with your rental provider in order to seek an outcome. The VPTA may also speak and share information with staff at other organisations who are also helping the renter with the same problem.

 

The VPTA will not make a referral to another organization, or provide your information to an individual or an organization outside of Victoria without your permission, unless we are legally required to do so.

 

You do not have to give us your personal, sensitive, or health information, but if you do not, we may not be able to assist you.

 

You can choose to remain anonymous, but if you choose to remain anonymous we can only give you general advice about housing. We cannot answer hypothetical questions or give advice about hypothetical scenarios.

 

At any time, you can write to the VPTA to request access to, or correction of, your personal, sensitive or health information. Requests should be addressed to the Chief Executive Officer and sent via email to admin@vpta.org.au, or via post to PO Box 4235, Fitzroy, Victoria, 3065.

 

If you wish to complain about how the VPTA has handled your information, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner or the Victorian Health Services Commissioner.