Privacy Policy

1 Preamble

Your privacy is important to Ascend Strata Support (ABN 64 601 802 939) (Ascend). This Privacy Policy provides information about the personal information that Ascend collects and the ways in which Ascend may use, hold and disclose this personal information. When used in this document, depending on the context, "we," "our" and "us" refers to Ascend.

2 Ascend Privacy Policy

Protecting personal information is fundamental to Ascend’s relationship with our clients, employees, suppliers and business partners. All personal information received in connection with an Ascend product or service, or in the conduct of Ascend’s business, is therefore treated seriously, having regard to the company’s legal obligations. Personal information is information that identifies you or could identify you. Ascend are subject to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), including the Australian Privacy Principles.

3 Information Collected

Generally, Ascend collects personal information directly from you via your use of the products and services on offer, use of the Ascend website (www.ascendstrata.com.au), any registration you make to participate with or receive information from our company, and any business relationship between you and us, including via email. The personal information which Ascend collects and hold includes

  • your name, age, billing and/or shipping address, email address, gender, TFN, occupation, telephone number(s)
  •  information about dealings with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), including lodgement history;
  •  email correspondence to which we have been either a sending or receiving party for the purposes of future reference.
  •  opinions and beliefs provided via surveys and questionnaires from time to time.

In addition, you may also provide to us and we may collect and hold additional personal information, such as details of the services ordered or purchased from us. We also may collect additional non-personally identifiable information (for example, browser version, IP address) that will provide information regarding the general use of the Ascend website. By providing us with personal information, you consent to that information being collected, used, disclosed and stored in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

If you do not give personal information to us, it may affect our ability to provide you with products and/or services. Where we engage with you multiple times over a short period in relation to the same matter, we may not provide you with a separate notice about privacy each time we engage with you however we will provide you with an opportunity to opt–out of receiving communications about that matter within each of those communications.

4 Opt-Out/Unsubscribe

You can easily unsubscribe at any time you want to our communications by contacting us using the contact details specified in paragraph 11 of this Privacy Policy. It may take some time to put an opt-out or an unsubscribe in effect so you may still receive communications from us for several weeks after your request is received. For the avoidance of doubt, by opting–out or unsubscribing yourself from a mailing list of an Ascend product or service this will ensure your removal from that particular mailing list but will not guarantee your removal from other mailing lists that the ATO or Ascend may store your details in as a result of your engagement with a different service or product.

5 Information from Third Parties

During the course of business, Ascend may also collect personal information that is given to them by a third party (for example, a business partner of Ascend or information that is on a publicly maintained record). This information forms part of the personal information described in this Privacy Policy. Ascend will not intentionally solicit personal information that is unintentionally disclosed. We may also receive information about you from third parties in relation to other websites. For example, you may choose to participate in a third party application or feature as part of our services on a third party website (eg: Strata Community Australia) or service (such as a Facebook application or a similar application or feature) through which you allow us to collect (or the third party to share) information about you, including personal information. When you choose to participate, you may be opting to link your activity on Ascend website services with that third party website or service, which may then collect information about your visits to our website and may publish that activity as you request to your "profile" or similar feature with that third party (such as if you choose to share content you find on the Ascend website with your "connections" on the third party's website or service). The information we collect is subject to this Privacy Policy. However, the information collected and stored by the third party remains subject to the third party's privacy practices, including whether the third party continues to share information with us or with other third parties, the types of information shared, and your choices with regard to what is visible to others on that third party's website or service. The third party may allow you to remove the application or feature, in which case we will no longer collect information about you through the application or feature, but we may retain the information previously collected. In addition, we may receive information about you if other users of a third party website or service give us access to their profiles and you are one of their "connections" or information about you is otherwise accessible through your "connections'" web page, profile page, or similar page on a social networking or other third party website or interactive service.

6 Public Forums, Refer a Friend, and Customer Testimonials

Ascend may provide bulletin boards, blogs, or chat rooms on our website. Any personal information you choose to submit in such a forum may be read, collected, or used by others who visit these forums, and may be used to send you unsolicited messages. Ascend are not responsible for the personal information you choose to submit in these forums.

7 Storage of Personal Information

Ascend will store personal information on data servers that are occassionally shared across the Dropbox Ltd file sharing application. Some of your personal information may therefore be transferred, stored, processed, used or disclosed overseas by this third party service provider. This may happen as the service provider is located overseas. You may have rights to enforce such parties' compliance with applicable data protection laws, but you may not have recourse against those parties under the Australian Privacy Act (Cth) 1988 in relation to how those parties treat your personal information. You agree to the disclosure and use of such personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and consent to its disclosure overseas and its use by third parties, where it may be used solely for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, without us being responsible for such use (or for any breach). Where Ascend use such cloud computing services we will use our reasonable endeavours to ensure that such disclosures are in compliance with Australian privacy laws.

8 Use and Disclosure of Personal Information

Ascend collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for purposes including, without limitation:

  • to verify your identity;
  • to improve our online services
  • to facilitate community competitions and programs;
  • to provide, and to assist us with providing products and services to you, to manage and account for the products and services, and to improve the products and services;
  • to manage our relationship(s) with you;
  • to provide you with information about events, products and/or services that may interest you;
  • to facilitate the internal business operations of Ascend;
  • to promote and market events, products or services;
  • to undertake research;
  • to enable corporate partners and sponsors of the Ascend, as well as their related bodies corporate, to market and promote their products and services to you; and
  • to our third party service providers in connection with any of the above.

Ascend may also disclose personal information where it is otherwise permitted to do so by law.

Sharing Information With Third Parties

We engage third parties to perform services in connection with the operation of our business. Examples of these services include payment processing and authorisation, fraud protection and credit risk reduction, product customisation, marketing and promotional material distribution, website evaluation, data analysis and, where applicable, data cleansing. We may need to share personal information with these third parties so that they can perform these services, however, we limit the personal information that we give to them and authorise them to use this information only for the purpose of performing those services. Ascend do not otherwise disclose personal information without your permission, unless the disclosure is

  • in accordance with this Privacy Policy or any agreement you enter into with us; or
  • required or authorised by law, including without limitation the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

9 Accessing www.ascendstrata.com.au

You need not disclose your identity to Ascend in order to visit www.ascendstrata.com.au (‘our website’), except where personal information is voluntarily supplied, however our internet server may automatically record details about any computer used to access the website (such as the IP address, domain name and browser type), the date and time of access, and details of the information downloaded. This information is used for internal statistical purposes and to improve our website.

Cookies

Ascend may use “cookies” on our website. A cookie is a small text file that Ascend may place on your computer. Usually, cookies are used as a means for our websites to remember your preferences and are thus designed to improve your experience of our website. Cookies may collect and store personal information about you. You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is sent. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

If you disable the use of cookies on your web browser or remove or reject specific cookies from our website or linked sites then you may not be able to gain access to all of the content and facilities on our website.

Website Analytics

When you visit and browse our website, our website host and some third party service providers may collect

information for statistical, reporting and maintenance purposes. Subject to the terms of this Privacy Policy, this information is used to administer and improve the performance of our website and will not be used to identify you. The information may include:

  • the number of users visiting our website and the number of pages viewed;
  • the date, time and duration of a visit;
  • visiting patterns of individuals accessing our website
  • the IP address of your computer; and
  • the path taken through our website.

Ascend’s website analytic services helps us to analyse how you use our website. Website Analytics generate statistical and other information about website use by means including but not limited to cookies which are stored on users' computers. The information generated is used to create reports about the use of our website. Our third party providers of these services may store this information. Ascend will not (and will not allow any third party to) use Website Analytics to track or to collect any personally identifiable information of visitors to our website. Ascend will not associate any data gathered from our website with any personally identifying information from any source as part of the Ascend's use of Website Analytics. Ascend treats personal information that may be obtained through cookies and any other information supplied to us (for example if you send us an email) in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Links

Our website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party website. Third party websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices.

Children’s Privacy

If you are under 18, you should only use our website with involvement of a parent or guardian. For their protection, we ask that anyone under 18 years of age does not attempt to provide us with any personal information without the consent of a parent or legal guardian.

10 Information Security

Ascend will take reasonable steps to protect all personal information within their direct control from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Ascend will take reasonable steps to hold information securely in electronic or physical form in access controlled premises or in electronic databases requiring logins and passwords.

11 Contacting Us Regarding Access, Correction and Privacy Complaints

An individual may:

  • request access to and seek the correction of their personal information held by Ascend at any time;
  •  make a complaint in relation to an alleged breach of privacy; or
  • submit a query or concern about this Privacy Policy or Ascend’s information handling processes, by contacting Ascend by email at admin@ascendstrata.com.au

Access

You will be required to provide proof of identity in order to obtain access to your personal information. Ascend may charge an administration fee where access is provided. Ascend may refuse to provide access if permitted to do so by law. Ascend aims to provide access to your personal information within 30 days of a valid request however, given that the organisation is volunteer based, this may not always be possible.

Complaints

At all times, privacy complaints:

  • will be treated seriously;
  • will be dealt with as promptly as possible;
  • will be dealt with in a confidential manner; and
  • will not affect your existing obligations or affect the commercial arrangements between you and Ascend.

The Ascend secretary will commence an investigation into your complaint. You will be informed of the outcome of your complaint within a reasonable period of time following completion of the investigatio

12 Updates to Privacy Policy

We may vary this Privacy Policy from time to time, by posting an updated Privacy Policy accessible via our website. This Privacy Policy was last updated on 29 August 2017.