Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy (Australia)

1. Our Commitment to Privacy

The Equifax group of companies in Australia and New Zealand (“Equifax”) (formerly the Veda group of companies) is an information services and aggregation business.  We recognise that to run our businesses successfully we must maintain high standards when it comes to how we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information.

We recognise your right to privacy and have established a number of protocols to help us keep the information we hold accurate, up-to-date and complete.

Much of the personal information collected and held by our business in Australia is covered by the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Act). This policy documents how we manage personal information and reflects our obligations under APP 1.3 to have a policy on this aspect of our business. 

In addition Equifax Australia Information Services and Solutions Pty Limited ("EISS") (formerly Veda Advantage Information Services and Solutions Pty Limited) operates a credit reporting business in Australia.  For further information on how EISS handles credit reporting information to which Part IIIA of the Act applies, please refer to our Credit Reporting Policy which may be found at www.equifax.com.au/credit-reporting-policy.

2. Who is Equifax?

Equifax comprises of a number of separate businesses, including the following:

• EISS which operates a credit reporting business in Australia.
• Equifax New Zealand Information Services and Solutions Limited (formerly Veda Advantage (NZ) Limited) which operates a credit reporting business in New Zealand.
• National Tenancy Database runs a tenancy database for licensed real estate agents. This database is managed by EISS.
• Australian Business Research operates a commercial credit reporting business managed by EISS and has linkages to EISS’ commercial credit database.
• Secure Sentinel provides loss assistance and retrieval services to its members
• Identity Watch provides online monitoring services to detect and alert its members if their details may be compromised
• Equifax Australasia HR Solutions Pty Limited ("Employment Verification") (formerly Verify Holdings Australia Pty Limited) provides candidate background screening service to organisations and individuals for employment purposes

• Equifax Australasia Workforce Solutions Pty Limited (trading as ‘Equifax HR Solutions’) provides HR platform systems and other workforce data management services across the employment cycle to businesses and individuals under the following key products:

  fit2work provides comprehensive candidate and employee background screening solutions including identity solutions, police checks and clearances. fit2Work also provides employees’ background screening badging solutions that ensure that the candidate or employee screening results are relevant and current.

  The Equifax Human Resources Platform (EHRP) is a secure online platform application that streamlines end-to-end employee management processes. It offers applicant tracking, onboarding, active employee engagement and offboarding, plus links to Verification Exchange™.

  eCredential is a clinical credentialing online services solution for healthcare practitioners and providers. It provides health practitioners and staff with the capability to create and self-manage a centralised clinical profile once they have subscribed to the service, which can be then be shared with hospitals and other health service providers. Clinician status reports can be produced and issued to subscribers. These provide a complete overview of the clinician’s current scope, status and their identity. Hospital/Health Service providers are able to log in, review and/or supervise the clinician’s current scope of qualifications and activities. eCredential is also fully compatible with EHRP.

  Verification Exchange™ provides data services for a customers’ employees when they require income and employment verification at the request of a verifier such as a lender credit provider or other entity seeking to determine whether the employee is entitled to a benefit. The verifier will receive an access code from the employee which will allow that verifier to access relevant details for one time only within a 24 hour period.

  • fit2work
  • Equifax Human Resources Platform (formerly known as eRecruit and ePerformance)
  • eCredential
  • Verification Exchange™
  • Equifax Australia Marketing Services Pty Limited ("Data-driven Marketing") (formerly Veda Advantage Solutions Group Pty Limited t/as Inivio) offers its customers a range of products to assist them in aspects of campaign management.
  • Equifax Australia Personal Solutions Pty Limited (“EAPS”) provides services to communicate information and offers to individuals in relation to products and services of Equifax and its clients;
  • Equifax Australasia Credit Ratings Pty Limited t/as Corporate Scorecard (formerly Corporate Scorecard Pty Limited) provides services for assessing, commercial, financial and operational risks of suppliers and contractors in procurement.
  • Kingsway Financial Assessments Pty Ltd provides services for assessing, commercial, financial and operational risks of suppliers and contractors in procurement.
  • Equifax Australia Commercial Services and Solutions Pty Limited (formerly Veda Advantage Lending Solutions (Australia) Pty Limited) provides MOGOplus and Tenant Affordability Check income and expenditure verification services.

  3. How Equifax collects your personal information

  Generally speaking Equifax collects personal information from third parties.  The sources of that personal information include those listed below, depending upon the purpose for which it is being collected.

  • Real estate agents and real estate platforms/websites;
  • Utility Providers;
  • Insurers, Loss assessors, Loss adjustors and investigators;
  • Law courts;
  • Credit providers, other financial institutions and access seekers;
  • Australian Securities and Investments Commission;
  • Australian Financial Security Authority
  • Telstra and other telecommunication providers;
  • Australia Post;
  • Australian Electoral Commission;
  • Australian Communications and Media Authority;
  • Market research organisations;
  • Direct marketing companies;
  • Service Providers to us;
  • Government agencies (such as the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and the Federal Department of Human Services);
  • External Dispute Resolution schemes; and
  • From our customers.

  In addition, there are a number of limited circumstances in which we will collect personal information from you:

  • When you apply for membership or whilst you are a member of Secure Sentinel and Identity Watch.
  • When you contact our Australian commercial or consumer credit bureau to obtain a copy of your commercial or consumer credit file.
  • When you contact our Australian commercial or consumer credit bureau to request an amendment to your commercial or consumer credit file or dispute information on your commercial or consumer credit file.
  • When you contact Data-driven Marketing, regarding material you have received from a Data-driven Marketing client.
  • When you contact NTD for a copy of your tenancy database file or to request an amendment to that file.
  • When you contact Employment Verification in order to provide information for background checks for employment purposes.
  • When you obtain information from us over the internet such as through the website carhistory.com.au.
  • When you opt-in to receiving offers and product information from Equifax.
  • When you utilise the MOGOplus or Tenant Affordability Check applications to obtain your account information and (in the case of MOGOplus) information from Centrelink about government assistance that you receive.
  • When you provide us with information, either through or websites or our representatives or otherwise.

  4. The kinds of, and purposes for which Equifax collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information

  We collect personal information for a variety of different purposes.

  Equifax collects a range of personal information, depending upon the purpose for which it is collected.  This includes publicly available information for use in our Commercial Risk & Information Services and in some of our B2C & Marketing services, including Equifax Score, NTD and Data-driven Marketing.  The publicly available information we collect includes:

  • Court judgements
  • Court writs
  • Bankruptcy, debt agreement and personal insolvency information
  • Directorship & Proprietorship information
  • Office holder details, shareholdings and other extracts and documents from ASIC
  • Telephone directory information
  • Pre-2004 Electoral Roll information

  We collect, hold, use and/or disclose your personal information for the purposes of carrying on our various businesses and for conducting the affairs of Equifax.

  Generally personal information is used and disclosed for the purposes for which it was collected, a related secondary purpose, or where you have consented to the use or disclosure.

  Where personal information is used for a secondary purpose there is, generally, no disclosure of personal information.  For example, we use the information collected to manage the accuracy of our data sets or for identity verification.  

  Generally, before any Equifax entity discloses your personal information to any third party outside Equifax, the third party to whom the information is disclosed must be a customer of one of our businesses. However, Equifax may disclose your personal information to service providers, including data storage providers and call centre operations, who assist us with providing products and services and conducting our business activities; and to professional service providers and advisors who perform functions on our behalf, such as lawyers. There may be circumstances where we are required or authorised by law to disclose your personal information to someone who is not a customer, for example to an Ombudsman, tribunal, court, law enforcement agency or government department.

  Service	Type of Personal Information we collect	Purpose for which we collect, hold, use and disclose
  Consumer Risk & Identity	For details about our Consumer Credit Risk business, please refer to our Credit Policy.   For Identity Solutions purposes we collect: Publicly available identity information NTD identity information Electoral Roll information For Fraud detection purposes we collect a range of information including identity information to help detect identity theft and other fraud.   For Collection Services purposes we collect:  Name and address information; and Publicly available information. We also collect commercial credit reporting information, as detailed below, which is used in our collection services for the collection of commercial credit defaults.   Employment Verification collects information from you and then seeks to verify that information from a variety of sources, e.g. interviewing referees, contacting universities to validate university transcripts, health care professionals and law enforcement agencies.  Depending upon the position being applied for, we collect some or all of the following information: Full name and previous names Date of birth Drivers licence number and validity Gender Contact details Occupation Skills Qualifications Employment history Professional memberships and accreditations Employment history Past responsibilities or any other information related to your career Citizenship and immigration status Criminal history Financial history Medical history Publicly available information such as directorship, proprietorship information and company officer information as well as court judgements, court writs and personal insolvency information. For MOGOplus and Tenant Affordability Check purposes we collect: Your name and email address, details of your nominated institution(s), accounts and other application or contact information submitted by you to the provider to whom you wish to provide verification information (including, in the case of Tenant Affordability Check, the platform provider through whom you submit a tenancy application), or to us. Account details and account transaction information from your nominated financial institution(s). In the case of MOGOplus, details of your Centrelink account as they are listed on your Centrelink account statements, including your Customer Reference Number (or “CRN”), name, address, date of birth, marital status and number of dependents, Centrelink payment types, payment amounts, last date paid and the date you received the last payment Technical navigation information, such as device used to complete the verification, required to diagnose data collection issues. Any additional information you may provide to us, through our website, applications, representatives, service centre or otherwise.  Your account sign in or log in details are collected in encrypted form and cannot be seen by Equifax or its service providers.	We use a range of information for our Identity Solutions.  Where identity verification is for AML/CTF for reporting entities, Equifax will use the current Electoral Roll in accordance with the Electoral Act 1918.   For this and other verification purposes disclosure is limited to indicating whether there is a match between the information provided and the information on Equifax's database.   The use and disclosure of personal information for Fraud detection is subject to controls and is for investigative related purposes.   The use and disclosure of personal information for collection services will vary according to the type of organisation requesting the information.   Commercial credit providers will have disclosed to them commercial credit information as well as publicly available information for collection purposes.   Other users of our collection services, such as mercantile agents, have access to publicly available information to assist them in collecting debts owed to their clients.   Employment Verification collects personal information for the purposes of providing background screening service to organisations and in assisting them in verifying the background of candidates or existing staff or in other circumstances where a candidate or existing staff member's background is relevant.  In order to do this we ask you to provide your consent to the use and disclosure of your personal information for verification purposes.   As such organisations we may disclose your personal information to include: Your current, previous or prospective employer To educational institutions to check your qualifications To nominated referees To law enforcement authorities State or Federal government agencies or departments As required or authorised by law Organisations that conduct medical testing and alcohol and drug testing Various regulatory bodies including ASIC, AFSA, APRA and AFS Psychological assessment providers MOGOplus services collect personal information for the purposes of providing the MOGOplus income and affordability verification services to you and your provider to whom you wish to provide verification information. Personal information collected will be disclosed on your behalf to your provider to conduct income and affordability verification. Your MOGOplus personal information will be held by us for no more than 366 days, after which it will be deleted or destroyed. Tenant Affordability Check services collect personal information for the purposes of providing the tenant affordability check services to you and the platform provider through whose platform you have submitted a tenancy application. Personal information collected will be disclosed on your behalf to the platform provider, for on-disclosure to the property manager to whom you have submitted a tenancy application, to conduct income and affordability verification. We may also use and disclose de-identified, aggregated account information collected through MOGOplus and Tenant Affordability Check for analytical and research purposes. No personal details, like name and address, will be used.
  Commercial Risk & Information Services	We collect a range of personal information for the purposes of operating a commercial credit bureau including: Full name Latest and previous addresses including postcode Date of birth Contact numbers Driver’s Licence Gender Current and Previous Employment information Enquiries made in relation to commercial credit or for risk assessment purposes Information relating to accounts you have defaulted on including those where you have gone guarantor Information relating to other debts or obligations you have failed to pay Information about commercial credit providers with whom you have a credit relationship Business phone numbers Business email addresses Publicly available information as described above	We collect this information in order to provide Commercial Risk and Information services to our customers.  As such we may provide this information to: Commercial credit providers Trade credit providers Consumer credit providers General insurers Factors Organisations conducting a risk assessment on an organisation of which you are a director, owner, partner, shareholder or employee. Organisations conducting property checks
  B2C Marketing Services	Equifax provides a number of services to consumers, most notably: Equifax Score(including Your Credit & Identity) My Credit File Secure Sentinel Identity Watch Carhistory.com.au NTD ReduceMyBills.com.au Tenancycheck.com.au In order to provide these services to you we need to collect personal information from you  which, depending upon the service you have chosen could include: Name Date of Birth Driver’s Licence Passport Details Medicare Card Number Gender Latest Address including postcode Previous Addresses including postcode Occupation Credit Card details Bank account details Email address Home phone number Mobile phone number Fax number Information about your mobile phone(s), financial cards and PayPal and eBay accounts. In the case of Data-driven Marketing we collect publicly available information as well as other personal information such as email address and mobile phone number.   Information that is not publicly available is collected by Data-driven Marketing from you or from third parties who have your consent to use and disclose your personal information or from you directly with your consent to the subsequent use and disclosure of that information.   We primarily collect information directly from you when you register to receive offers from us when you answer our questionnaires, and when you enter our competitions.   ReduceMyBills.com.au collects your personal information when you contact us or request that we contact you in connection with electricity & gas, phone, internet and pay TV connections. TenancyCheck.com.au is a service that allows landlord to carry out checks as part of assessing a tenancy application.   We obtain your personal information when a landlord uses our website to undertake a check.	In the case of Equifax Score, My Credit File and carhistory.com.au Equifax does not disclose your personal information to third parties unless you have given us your express or implied consent or where required or authorised by law.   In the case of Secure Sentinel, we may disclose your personal information to: your third party providers, such as your financial institutions, mobile phone provider. research organisations government, law enforcement or statutory bodies with the Secure Sentinel corporate partner through whom you obtained this service. to third parties acting on our behalf. In the case of Identity Watch, we may disclose your information to third parties acting on our behalf to assist us to provide the services to you.   In the case of NTD we collect information in accordance with the APPs for the purpose of  provision of services to property managers and real estate agents and for risk assessment and risk management purposes provision of services to your landlord, your landlord’s lawyer, mortgagee or insurer organisations or trades people required to carry out maintenance to the premises you lease rental bond authorities or rental bond insurance providers residential tenancy tribunals and other relevant bodies as required mercantile agents provision of information to credit providers to assist utilities collection provision of such information to other entities within Equifax in the case of commercial leases, provision to a credit reporting body for risk assessment purposes. If as part of signing up to Equifax Score, My Credit File, Secure Sentinel, Identity Watch, carhistory.com.au or NTD you provide consent to receive marketing offers from Equifax or from customers your identity information may be collected, used and disclosed to those customers by Equifax for marketing purposes.   Data-driven Marketing and ReachTEL collect your personal information for a variety of reasons including: To evaluate and improve our service, and provide you with a more personalised service; To provide you with information about the products and services we offer, including letting you know about competitions and promotions;  To conduct market research; To pass on to selected third parties so they can contact you by mail, telephone, sms, email or otherwise with offers, promotions, marketing or information which may be of interest to you; As part of working with other organisation to offer co-branded promotion.  We will share your responses with the Sponsors to assist them in providing you with more targeted communications.  For further information about the other purposes for which Data-driven Marketing uses and discloses personal information refer to the Data-driven Marketing Privacy Policy For further information about the other purposes for which ReachTEL uses and discloses personal information refer to the ReachTEL Privacy Policy   TenancyCheck.com.au collects, uses and discloses your personal information including past tenant history, publicly available information, tenant evictions and terminations, irregular rent payment history to provider its tenancy services to landlords.
  Equifax HR Solutions	Equifax HR Solutions provides HR platform systems and other workforce data management services across the employment cycle to businesses and individuals under the following key products: fit2work Equifax Human Resources Platform (formerly known as eRecruit and ePerformance) eCredential Verification Exchange™	The Privacy Policy and relevant Collection Statements governing the Equifax HR Solutions systems and services are accessible at https://www.equifax.com.au/hrsolutions/termsandconditions.html

  In addition, as Veda Group Pty Limited was previously a public company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, we collected, and hold, use and disclose your personal information as follows:

  Type of personal information we collected

  Purpose for which we collected, hold, use and disclose

  When you filled out an application form the personal information you provided was collected by Equifax through the Share Registry of Equifax.

  The personal information we collected may be used by Equifax or its Share Registry for the purposes (but only to the extent still required) of processing your application, servicing your needs as a shareholder, providing facilities and services that you need or requesting and carrying out appropriate administration, facilitating dividend payments and corporate communications (including the financial results of Equifax, annual reports and other information that Equifax may communicate to its shareholders) and compliance by Equifax with legal and regulatory requirements.   In addition, your personal information may also be provided to the agents of Equifax and service providers on the basis that they deal with such information in accordance with Equifax's privacy policy.   Your personal information may also be used to inform you about other products and services offered by Equifax , which it considers may be of interest to you. Please note that information in Equifax's register is retained in accordance with the Corporation Act 2001.  The information will remain there for 7 years after you cease to be a shareholder.

  If Equifax does not collect your personal information, Equifax may not be able to provide its products or services to or in connection with you.

  Disclosures Overseas

  In limited circumstances Equifax may disclose your personal information to an entity overseas.  Generally speaking this is in circumstances where we have engaged a third party to carry out certain call centre operations on behalf of one of the Equifax entities.  In such cases, personal information including name, address and telephone numbers is disclosed to organisations in South Africa and the Philippines. In addition, as part of Data-driven Marketing’s marketing services personal information may be disclosed to Singapore and the United States of America and to service providers in the United Kingdom, Poland, Israel and Germany.  Where Employment Verification is conducting verification in Australia and you have lived overseas, personal information about you may be disclosed to the country(ies) in which you have resided as part of the verification process.  This can include verification of your employment history; educational qualifications obtained overseas as well a criminal history check. Identity Watch discloses your personal information to overseas recipients in the USA for the purpose of assisting us to perform the information services and solutions.

  5. Your Right of Access

  You have the right to access personal information Equifax holds on you and to have incorrect information amended.

  If you would like to obtain a copy of your files including the personal information Equifax holds on you or to request a correction to personal information held by Equifax, please contact us in writing:

  How to obtain copy of	Contact Details
  Your Consumer Risk & Identity, Commercial Risk and /or insurance information	Equifax – Public Access Equifax Australia Information Services and Solutions Pty Limited GPO Box 964 NORTH SYDNEY NSW 2059 https://www.equifax.com.au/understanding-your-credit-file
  Your information held by Reduce My Bills	On 1300 680 603
  Your tenancy information held by NTD	info@ntd.net.au
  Your personal information held by CarHistory	Email: support@carhistory.com.au
  Your personal Information held by Secure Sentinel	On 1800 022 043 Email: customerservice@securesentinel.com.au
  Your personal Information held by Identity Watch	Email: customerservice@identitywatch.com.au
  Your Personal Information held by EAPS	Equifax Australia Personal Solutions Pty Ltd GPO Box 964 NORTH SYDNEY NSW 2059
  Your personal information held by Employment Verification	Equifax Australasia Workforce Solutions Pty Limited Locked Bag 965 NORTH SYDNEY  NSW  2059 Email: support@fit2work.com.au
  Your personal information held be Equifax HR Solutions	Equifax Australasia HR Solutions Pty Limited Locked Bag 965 NORTH SYDNEY NSW 2059 fit2work email: support@fit2work.com.au Verification Exchange email: support.au.ve@equifax.com
  Your personal information held by Data-driven Marketing	Equifax Australia Marketing Services Pty Limited GPO Box 13294 BRISBANE QLD 4001 Email: customercomplaintsAU@equifax.com
  Your personal information held by Corporate Scorecard	Email: admin@corporatescorecard.com.au
  Your personal information held by Kingsway Assessments Pty Ltd	Email: assessments@kingswaygroup.com.au
  Your personal information held by ReachTEL	ReachTEL PO Box 13294, George St  BRISBANE QLD 4001 Email: support@reachtel.com.au
  Your MOGOplus or Tenant Affordability Check personal information held by Equifax Australia Commercial Services and Solutions Pty Limited	Equifax – Public Access Equifax Australia Commercial Services and Solutions Pty Limited GPO Box 964 NORTH SYDNEY NSW 2059 Telephone: 13 8332
  Share related personal information	Link Marketing Services Level 12, 680 George Street SYDNEY  NSW  2000 Level 1, 333 Collins Street MELBOURNE  VIC  3000 Telephone:  1300 554 474

  Equifax may charge you a fee for providing you with a copy of your files and for providing you with the information that Equifax holds on you.

  6. Your right to request a correction or make a complaint

  If you have a dispute about personal information held by Equifax and covered by this policy, we will investigate and provide you with a formal written response, generally, within 30 days. Where we determine that no amendment to your personal information is required you have the right to add a statement to your file.

  We will investigate and deal with your correction request or complaint in a fair, efficient and timely manner. 

  You can contact us at:

  Type of information	Contact Details
  Your Consumer Risk & Identity, Commercial Risk and /or insurance information	Equifax – Public Access Equifax Australia Information Services and Solutions Pty Limited GPO Box 964 NORTH SYDNEY NSW 2059 Or via the Equifax Corrections Portal
  Your information held by Reduce My Bills	On 1300 680 603
  Your tenancy information held by NTD	info@ntd.net.au
  Your personal information held by CarHistory	Email: support@carhistory.com.au
  Your personal Information held by Secure Sentinel	On 1800 022 043 Email: customerservice@securesentinel.com.au
  Your personal Information held by Identity Watch	Email: customerservice@identitywatch.com.au
  Your personal information held by Employment Verification	Equifax Australasia Workforce Solutions Pty Limited Locked Bag 965 NORTH SYDNEY NSW 2059 Email: support@fit2work.com.au
  Your personal information held by Data-driven Marketing or information collected in connection with third party online behavioural advertising	Equifax Australia Marketing Services Pty Limited GPO Box 13294 BRISBANE QLD 4001 Email: customercomplaintsAU@equifax.com
  Your personal information held by Kingsway Assessments Pty Ltd	Email: assessments@kingswaygroup.com.au
  Your personal information held by The Prospect Shop	The Prospect Shop GPO Box 964 NORTH SYDNEY NSW 2059 Telephone: 02 9281 0299 Email: info@prospectshop.com.au
  Your personal information held by ReachTEL	ReachTEL PO Box 13294, George St  BRISBANE QLD 4001 Email: support@reachtel.com.au
  Your MOGOplus or Tenant Affordability Check personal information held by Equifax Australia Commercial Services and Solutions Pty Limited	Equifax – Public Access Equifax Australia Commercial Services and Solutions Pty Limited GPO Box 964 NORTH SYDNEY NSW 2059 Telephone: 13 8332

  If you are unhappy with the outcome of Equifax’s investigation or would like to make a complaint, please contact our Internal Dispute Resolutions (IDR) team by sending an email to customercomplaintsAU@equifax.com. Make sure that you sufficiently detail your matter and include your full name, contact details, any reference numbers and relevant supporting documentation. Our IDR team will investigate your matter and contact you to attempt to resolve the matter directly. 
   
  We want to do everything we can to resolve your matter, so it's important that you raise it with our IDR team prior to having your matter addressed externally. Raising your matter with Equifax directly will often result in a quicker resolution.  
   
  If you are still not satisfied with our response, you may contact the external dispute resolution scheme of which Equifax is a member, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). Please note that if you have not already done so, AFCA will likely encourage you to work with us before they investigate your complaint. 
   
  How to contact the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA): 
  Online:  www.afca.org.au  
  Email:  info@afca.org.au  
  Phone: 1800 931 678  
  Mail: Australian Financial Complaints Authority 
  GPO Box 3 
  Melbourne VIC 3001 
   
  When contacting AFCA, we suggest you include the following: 

  • a detailed timeline/chronology of events
  • copies of any correspondence with our Customer Resolutions Team and the credit provider 

  You may also make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). 
   
  How to contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC): 
  Online: www.oaic.gov.au  
  Email:  enquiries@oaic.gov.au  
  Fax: 1300 363 992  
  Mail: Office of the Australian Information Commissioner   
  GPO Box 5218   
  Sydney NSW 2001 

  We want to do everything we can to resolve your matter, so it's important that you raise it with our IDR team prior to having your matter addressed externally. Raising your matter with Equifax directly will often result in a quicker resolution.

   

  7. Use of Personal Information for Marketing Purposes

  For specific information regarding use of personal information by Data-driven Marketing for marketing purposes, please refer to Data-driven Marketing’s Privacy Policy. The information which follows is of general application to Equifax and is subject to those policies.

  Equifax collects information to provide its customers and individuals with a large variety of services.  Sometimes different entities within Equifax will contact individuals to market Equifax services.  All marketing by Equifax to individuals is based on the consent of the individual to that marketing.

  This may, depending on the consent provided, include promotional material including but not limited to communications of the following kind:

  a) Newsletters
  b) Competitions
  c) Surveys
  d) Promotions on existing or new products
  e) Other, if any

  Equifax may do so by using a variety of means including:

  a) electronic means such as emails, SMS, MMS or similar devices
  b) hardcopy to your nominated address; and
  c) subject to Do Not Call Register, call you.

  Equifax may, at any time, disclose your information to its clients, where you have provided consent, for marketing purposes so they can send you marketing information similar to the above.

  At all times you are free to choose not to receive some or all of the marketing communications sent by Equifax or on Equifax's behalf.  In order to exercise that choice you need to communicate to:

  Equifax Entity	Source of Consent	Contact Details
  Equifax Score	If you provided consent via the Your Credit & Identity or MyCreditFile services	Equifax Australia Information Services and Solutions Pty Limited  GPO Box 964 NORTH SYDNEY NSW 2059
  Data-driven Marketing	If you received marketing material from a customer of Data-driven Marketing or via IQ Connect	Equifax Australia Marketing Services Pty Limited GPO Box 13294 BRISBANE QLD 4001 Email: customercomplaintsAU@equifax.com
  Secure Sentinel	If you were, or are a customer of Secure Sentinel, at the time you subscribed to the services or made a change to your subscription.	Attention:  National Manager Secure Sentinel Pty Ltd Locked Bag 4845 CHATSWOOD  NSW  2057 Email:  customerservice@securesentinel.com.au
  Identity Watch	If you were, or are a customer of Identity Watch, at the time you subscribed to the services or made a change to your subscription.	Email: customerservice@identitywatch.com.au
  CarHistory	If you were or are a customer of CarHistory and provided your consent.	CarHistory GPO Box 966 NORTH SYDNEY NSW 2059 support@carhistory.com.au
  Corporate Scorecard	If you have consented to receiving emails from Corporate Scorecard about its products and services.	Equifax Australasia Credit Ratings Pty Limited (formerly Corporate Scorecard Pty Limited) Email: admin@corporatescorecard.com.au
  Kingsway	If you are a customer of Kingsway, have been assessed by Kingsway or have consented to receiving emails from Kingsway about its products and services.	Kingsway Financial Assessments Pty Ltd Email: enquiries@kingswaygroup.com.au
  ReachTEL	If you do not wish to receive direct marketing information or to be contacted for marketing offers or any market research.	ReachTEL Registering your details at: www.reachtel.com.au/do-not-call ;or Email: support@reachtel.com.au

  8. Government Identifiers and Sensitive Information

  We do not use or adopt as our own identifier any identifier assigned by a Commonwealth or State Government agency. 

  However, if you are a member of Secure Sentinel and Identity Watch, we retain details of your passport, including your passport number, as part of the services we provide you.  Identity Watch may also retain your Medicare Care number, as part of the services we provide to you.  

  In certain circumstances we may seek evidence of your identity such as passport details, driver’s licence or similar in order to help verify your identity.

  Employment Verification may collect, use, hold and disclose details relating to your criminal record, if applicable, for the purposes of conducting an employment check.

  We do not collect, hold or disclose sensitive information about you such as:

  • Political, social, religious or ethical beliefs or affiliations
  • Colour, race, ethnic or national origins
  • Sexual preferences or practices

  9. How we hold and keep your Personal Information Secure

  Access to your personal information held by Equifax for Consumer Risk & Identity, Commercial Risk & Information Services is available by subscription only and is tracked and recorded.  Access is subject to contractual terms and conditions.  Access to other personal information is subject to your consent, or is publicly available, or is subject to contractual terms and conditions.  These include compliance with the Privacy Act and other relevant legislation.

  We may hold your personal information in paper or other physical form, but it is usually held in electronic form on our systems. To ensure your personal information is secure, we use industry standard security and encryption to protect the personal information we hold on you. Service providers may hold the information for us, such as our data centre providers which have been certified as ISO 27001 compliant. Where a service provider holds your information, we require those service providers to adhere to our approved standards of security and confidentiality to ensure the continuing protection of your personal information.

  Only authorised employees are granted access to your personal information. We train the employees who handle your personal information to ensure that your personal information is handled appropriately. Our procedures ensure that your personal information is only made available to employees where necessary.  We audit and monitor our employees’ access to, and handling of, personal information.

  10. Further information about your Privacy rights

  For further information about the APPs of the Act please visit the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner website at www.oaic.gov.au.

  This policy documents how we manage personal information and reflects our obligations under the APPs of the Act.  If you would like information about how we manage personal information as a credit reporting body go to our Credit Reporting Policy. This document does not create any additional rights under contract, statute or equity.  

  11. Do we collect any other data?

  We may collect data regarding users online activities over time on our online network of internet sites, non-affiliated websites, mobile applications or online services including information that you voluntarily provide to us online or offline, for example in response to surveys or competitions.

  We will not combine this data with personal information about you for sharing with any third party, nor will we provide it to an advertiser or any other third party without your express consent, or as expressly stated in this policy. 

  For third party online behavioural advertising, we may disclose any data about your activities which is not personal information and does not allow you to be reasonably identifiable to a third party - for example, data associated with a cookie, pixel tag, mobile advertising ID or other tracking code – and permit them to use this data for the purpose of associating that tracking code with your use of our websites, and of third party websites where we or our advertising partners have an arrangement in place to serve ads to you on those third party websites. 

  We may also collect and use, and permit third parties to collect and use, data from third parties about your online or offline activities, as linked by that third party to that tracking code, to facilitate display of advertisements, goods, services, recommendations or content to you that are selected using inferences as to your preferences or interests.  For example, we may collect information related to demographic, behavioural and usage patterns, referred to as “preference data”.  By targeting ads and content to unidentified individuals (such as you) only if you are within a particular interest or preference segment, targeted advertising and targeted content is intended to be more relevant or useful to you.

  You may elect to opt-out of third party online behavioural advertising by going to http://www.aboutads.info/appchoices or if you wish to opt out of our third party marketing partners please select the relevant link below where you can opt out of internet based adverting.

  https://www.oracle.com/legal/privacy/marketing-cloud-data-cloud-privacy-policy.html 
  https://www.networkadvertising.org/

  However, opting-out means that the display advertising you see may not be tailored to your interests or preferences and may therefore be less relevant or useful to you. 

  For further information about how we use cookies, please see our Cookies Policy at www.equifax.com.au/cookies.  You can also manage cookies on your mobile device or in your web browser privacy settings.  See your device or browser FAQs, or Your Online Choices, for more information.

   12. Big Data and Machine Learning Activities

  For some of our business and analytical activities, Equifax may use big data or machine learning capabilities to gather, acquire or obtain information from various sources by lawful and fair means.  In very rare and limited circumstances these activities may lead to the creation of personal information. For example, when we bring together a large variety of non-identifying information for analysis, an individual may be identified or reasonably identifiable during the analytical process.  Similarly, the creation of insights about an identified individual using analytics may lead to the collection of new categories of personal information about that individual. 

  Generally our analytical activities use de-identified and/or aggregated data, but we take reasonable steps to ensure that, to the extent any data is personal information, all relevant privacy laws apply to its handling.

  Last updated: 25 November 2020