Privacy policy

Introduction

Personal information is information or opinion that allows others to identify you. It includes your name, age, gender, contact details, as well as your financial information. The Reach Australia (Reach Australia) will act to protect your personal information in accordance with the National Privacy Principles or an industry privacy code. Your privacy is important to us. The following statement outlines Reach Australia’s procedure on how we manage the personal information we hold about our members and supporters. It is a Reach Australia policy to respect the confidentiality of information and the privacy of individuals. The Reach Australia Privacy Policy Statement will be reviewed from time to time to take account of new laws and technology, changes to our operations and practices and to make sure it remains appropriate to the changing environment. Any information we hold will be governed by the most current Reach Australia Privacy Policy Statement. We are committed about being open about how we use personal information. Where our documents ask for personal information, we will generally state the purpose for its use and to whom it may be disclosed.

 

Purpose of Collecting Information

Reach Australia is committed to mobilizing and mentoring church planters to enable them to evangelise grounded and growing churches into existence across Australia. As part of this vision, Reach Australia aims to mobilize young men for this task, assess potential planters, mentor approved Reach Australia planters, facilitate opportunities for networking and provide church planting training. As such, personal information about people who we are involved with and who attend the activities of Reach Australia is collected primarily for the purpose of maintaining contact with potential planter or supporters of our work.

Personal information is collected so that we may:

  • assist our members with any queries continue to build relationships throughout the Reach Australia network;
  • provide our members and supporters with information about church planting in Australia and Reach Australia events/conferences; and
  • collect funds from them by various means for Reach Australia events, church planting conferences and to support the ministry activities of Reach Australia. If you have provided us with your email or mobile phone details, we may provide information to you electronically with respect to what is happening in the Reach Australia network

 

What information is held?

Because of the nature of the services provided, we may ask for a range of personal information. Personal information collected by Reach Australia generally comprises name, address, date of birth, contact details (including telephone, facsimile and e-mail), the type, name and date of events attended and financial information. We obtain most of this information directly from our members and from maintaining records of information provided in the course of ongoing ministry. This information may be collected at Reach Australia conferences/events, smaller group meetings, from responses to our communication to you, filling in our Financial Response Form or from other public sources, for example, telephone directories. Given that we are dealing with large numbers of members and supporters and as we need to identify you within our record keeping, we may seek to collect a piece of personal information from you that is in some way unique to yourself. Under the Privacy Principles (as listed in the following) this will not be any Commonwealth Government identifiers (e.g. Medicare number). For example, we may seek to ask you for only the day and month of your birth. This will help us keep your records unique from other members, especially if we have members with similar names, and no current address information.

If an individual makes a financial payment to Reach Australia then other information such as bank account details and credit card information may need to be collected. During the assessment process, we may ask for sensitive information to be collected. For more details see the section entitled ‘Sensitive Information is subject to greater restrictions’.

 

How do we use this information and whom may we disclose it to?

While we may send you information regarding the activities of Reach Australia from time to time that we think may be useful to you, we are conscious of the need to respect your privacy. We may from time to time make offers to you for your information to be passed to like-minded ministry organisations. If you consent to this offer then we will keep a record of your intention as well as pass on the information you have indicated to the nominated organisation/s. The personal contact information you give to us may be made available to Reach Australia employees at the discretion of the relevant staff members. This availability of information will also extend to other Reach Australia paid employees, as well as other volunteers who Reach Australia deem it appropriate to see your personal information. At all times we will maintain a record of those employees, and volunteers. This is in keeping with our stated purpose for the collection of the information. We will not disclose your banking details such as card numbers, expiry dates, account numbers and the like to any other party without your explicit consent, unless compelled to do so by law. In the event of a listing of Reach Australia members being produced which would then be made available to friends of Reach Australia, we will produce a separate application form for the collection of information for such a list. This form will include (but is not limited to):

  • the nature of the information being collected;
  • the purpose of the collection;
  • the nature of the distribution of the list;
  • an avenue for people to not have their information listed

Sensitive information is subject to greater restrictions Some personal information we hold is ‘sensitive’. Sensitive information relates to a person’s:

  • racial or ethnic origin;
  • membership of political bodies, religions or trade unions;
  • criminal record;
  • state of health;
  • medical history.

We will obtain specific written consent from you when collecting the information, outlining the purpose, nature of the information and to whom the information will be disclosed. As part of our Privacy Policy we hereby undertake to collect only the following information that is deemed to be ‘sensitive information’: Racial or ethnic origin The form of information collected may include country of origin or ethnicity. Membership of political bodies, religions or trade unions The form of information collected will be restricted to the denomination, location and name of the church that the individual may attend.

State of health, medical history On occasions we may seek to collect this information, when we consider that the collection is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to life or health of an individual. This would particularly apply when we are dealing with children who for a stated and agreed reason will be absent from their parents and under our care. In such a case, a separate form will be provided for the collection of such information. This form will include (but is not limited to):

  • the nature of the sensitive information being collected;
  • the purpose of the collection;
  • how the information will be stored and used;
  • how long the information will be stored for;
  • an avenue for people to not have their information collected – and the consequences of us not being able to collect such information

Criminal record – During the course of collecting and processing information for the Working with Children Check (under the Child Protection Act) it may be made apparent that an individual has a criminal record. This information will only be held as according to the guidelines set down in the Child Protection Act. Under circumstances other than the collection of information pertaining to the Child Protection Act, sensitive information regarding criminal records will not be collected. We will not be seeking to collect information regarding membership of political bodies, trade unions, or information regarding sexual preferences or activities.

 

Personal information quality

Our goal is to ensure that the personal information we hold is accurate, complete and up to date. Please contact us if any of the details you have provided change. Please also contact us if you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up to date. We may take steps to update personal information, for example, an address, by collecting personal information from publicly available sources, for example, telephone directories.

 

Personal information security

We are committed to keeping secure the personal information you provide to us. We take all reasonable precautions to protect the personal information we hold about you from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We have a range of practices and policies in place to provide a robust security environment. We ensure the on-going adequacy of these measures by regularly reviewing them. Reach Australia seeks to train its staff and volunteers who handle personal information to respect the confidentiality of members’ information and the privacy of individuals. Reach Australia regards any breaches of your privacy to be a very serious matter. We have appointed a Privacy Officer to ensure that the management of your personal information is in accordance with this statement. Safeguarding the privacy of your information is important to us, whether you interact with us personally, by phone, mail, over the Internet, or other electronic media. We hold personal information in a combination of secure computer storage facilities and paper based files and other records, and take steps to protect the personal information we hold from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We may need to maintain records for a significant period of time. However, where information we hold is identified as no longer needed for any purpose we ensure it is effectively and securely destroyed, for example, by shredding or pulping in the case of paper records and other means in the case of electronic records and equipment.

Reach Australia endeavours to ensure that the personal information it holds is accurate and up-to-date. We realise that this information changes frequently with changes of address and other personal circumstances. We can update your information over the telephone or via email.

 

Handling of financial information

1. The personal contact information you give to us may be made available to Reach Australia employees at the discretion of the relevant staff members. This availability of information will also extend to other Reach Australia employees, as well as other volunteers who Reach Australia deem it appropriate to see your personal information. At all times we will maintain a record of those employees, and volunteers. This is in keeping with our stated purpose for the collection of the information.

2. We may from time to time make offers to you for your information to be passed to likeminded ministry organisations. If you consent to this offer then we will keep a record of your intention as well as pass on the information you have indicated to the nominated organisation/s.

3. If you are a financial supporter of Reach Australia we will, unless expressly requested otherwise, disclose your name along with the amount and frequency of your donations to the following persons (if applicable): (a) The church planter or Reach Australia project you are supporting; (b) To the treasurer or person responsible for monitoring the financial situation of Reach Australia.

4. We will not disclose your financial account numbers or details to any other person or organisation, unless we have your express written authority or unless compelled to do so by law.

5. If you wish your donation to be made anonymously, in terms of the church planter you are supporting or particular Reach Australia project we have facilities in place to enable this.

 

Online Collection of information via website activity

For statistical purposes we collect information on web site activity (such as the number of users who visit our web site, the date and time of visits, the number of pages viewed, navigation patterns, what country and what systems users have used to access the site and, when entering one of our web sites from another web site, the address of that web site) through the use of ‘cookies’. This information on its own does not identify an individual but it does provide Reach Australia with statistics that can be used to analyse and improve our web site.

 

Members-only website

Information you provide on the Reach Australia website membership application is used to create a member profile, and some information may be shared with other like-minded ministry organisations. Member contact information may be provided to other members on a secure Web site to encourage and facilitate collaboration, research, and the free exchange of information among Reach Australia members. Reach Australia members automatically are added to the Reach Australia-member mailing lists. By providing us with your personal information on the membership application, you expressly consent to our storing, processing, and distributing your information for these purposes. Requests to view and make amendments Any individual can at any time view or amend the information that is held on them by Reach Australia. Requests to view or amend personal information can be made by contacting our office:

Phone: + 612 9235 1148

Email: [email protected]

Privacy Officer Reach Australia

44 Margaret Street Sydney NSW 2000