Privacy Policy

We recognise the importance of privacy and we are committed to protecting your personal information. We are required to comply with the Privacy Act 1988(Cth) which provides for the fair handling of personal information and sets standards for the collection, access, storage and use of personal information. Our policy for dealing with any personal information that you disclose to us is explained below.

About this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy outlines how we manage your personal information. It also describes generally the sorts of personal information held and for what purposes and how that information is collected, held, used and disclosed.

This Privacy Policy applies to all your dealings with us whether using the website, in writing or in person. By dealing with us you consent to our use and disclosure of your personal information in the manner described in this Privacy Policy. We encourage you to check our website regularly for any updates to our Privacy Policy.

What personal information do we collect?

The type of personal information we collect depends on the nature of your dealings with us and the reason for collecting it.

Personal information we collect about you may include your name and contact details, your employment details, industry expertise, areas of interest, your credit card, debit card or bank account information, details of your dealings with us, and any other information reasonably necessary to provide you with our goods.

We may collect your personal information if you:

ask us to provide you with goods;
are an employee of one of our customers or partners;
are one of our suppliers or contractors or one of their employees;
are a subscriber to our mailing list or newsletter;
attend an event organised by us; or
submit a job application

To provide goods to you we may collect your name, contact details, your employment details, and details of your dealings with us. To make a payment to us, we may collect your credit card, debit card or bank account information.

If you are one of our suppliers or contractors, or one of their employees, we may collect your name, contact details and position in the organisation.

If you are a subscriber to our mailing list or newsletter, or attended an event organised by us, we may collect your name, contact details, job title, areas of interest and details of your dealings with us.

If you apply for a job with us, you may provide us with certain information, including your name, employment and educational background, and other personal information which we may require you to provide, or which you choose to provide us, in relation to your job application.

How do we collect personal information?

How we collect personal information also depends on the nature of your dealings with us.

If you are a customer of one of our customers, they may provide us with your personal information to assist us to provide goods to them.

We collect personal information directly from you whenever it is reasonable and practical to do so, for example when you set up a customer account with us, or leave your business card with us when you attend our stall at a trade or industry event. We may also collect personal information from third parties in the course of providing goods or services to you or to them. Other examples of the way in which we may collect your personal information are:

from our sales representatives who have visited, called or otherwise contacted you;
from our accounts department who have obtained contact details such as email addresses to send invoices to you; and
from trade or industry event organisers where you had registered with them as a delegate to that event.

Where your personal information is provided to us by a third party, we will take reasonable steps to let you know that we have your personal information, unless it is obvious from the circumstances that you know or would expect us to have the information. Reasonable steps may include asking the person who gave us your information to let you know that we have that information.

If you are one of our suppliers or contractors, your personal information may be collected from you, your employer, employees, or third parties.

If you elect not to provide some personal information to us, this may affect our ability to provide goods or services to you.

Why do we collect personal information?

We will only collect personal information in connection with carrying out business activities. We will only use your personal information for the purpose(s) for which you have provided the information or as otherwise permitted by law.

Generally, the purpose for which we collect personal information will be apparent from the way in which we collect it, or will be disclosed at the time of collection. If at any time the purpose for which we are collecting your personal information is unclear, please raise your concerns with the person with whom you are dealing or contact us using the contact details below.

Credit card and bank account details

To make a payment to us, we may collect your credit card, debit card or bank account information. Credit card and bank account details provided to us are only stored for the processing of payment and will be deleted once payment of all monies (including but not limited to bond monies) owing to us is fully processed.

How do we use your personal information?

Generally, the purpose for which we collect personal information will be apparent from the way in which we collect it, but your personal information may be used for:

administering our relationships with you efficiently;
providing you with goods and services or information regarding our goods and services;
monitoring, evaluating and improving goods and services;
for the purpose(s) you have provided the information;
for a purpose you have consented to; or
for a purpose otherwise permitted by law.

We may use your personal information for research and development of our goods or to send you information about other goods or services offered by us which may be of interest to you. If you would prefer not to receive promotional or other material from us, please let us know by sending an email to the contact details below and we will respect your request. Alternatively, simply select the “unsubscribe” option in any of the emails that you receive from us.

If you apply for a job with us, we will hold, use and disclose that information solely for the purpose of considering your application. In particular, in considering your application, it may be necessary for us to disclose some of that information to third parties to verify the accuracy of that information. In such circumstances, we will disclose only such information as is necessary in the circumstances. In considering your application, we may also collect personal information about you from any third parties that you nominate as your referees in your application.

If at any time the purpose for which we are collecting your personal information is unclear, please raise your concerns with the person you are dealing with or contact us using the contact details below.

Where do we store the personal information collected?

We store our documents and the personal information collected from those documents on:

Servers located in the USA or in Australia that are managed by either us or third party service providers; and
Cloud platforms located in Australia and the USA operated by Silversky that stores our emails and manages our email system.

When do we disclose personal information?

We may disclose your personal information to related service entities or third party service providers and contractors who assist in our internal business and administrative operations.

Personal information disclosed to us may be accessed by permitted users. In most circumstances, the personal information will be disclosed to people located in the organisation. In some circumstances, the personal information could be disclosed to people (including our employees) located outside of the organisation.

When we engage the services of a third party, we take reasonable steps to ensure they comply with the Privacy Act and maintain the confidentiality of any personal information to which they have access.

We share your personal information only as set forth below:

with our related entities (including affiliated or partnered businesses) where it is necessary to meet the purpose for which you have submitted the information;
with third party agents and contractors who perform certain functions on our behalf; or
in the event we choose to buy or sell assets or businesses, customer information may be transferred in the transaction. In addition, if we, or substantially all of our assets, were acquired, customer information would be one of the assets that are transferred.

If we are required to disclose personal information to an overseas recipient, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipient complies with the Australian Privacy Principles.

We may also use your contact information to keep you updated on developments on our products or upcoming events which may be relevant to you.

How do we ensure your personal information is correct?

We take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. To assist, please contact us if any of the details you have provided are incorrect or have changed.

How do we keep your personal information secure?

We are committed to keeping your personal information secure. We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

Only employees who need customer information to perform a specific job (e.g. customer service representative ) are granted access to it. All our employees are kept up-to-date on our privacy and security practices.

Security measures include a single sign-up on password manager with user access restricted by authentication level. The password database is encrypted and LAN access is password protected and access restricted by permission.

While we use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that you provide personal information in a secure environment, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed as totally secure. We do not accept responsibility for the security of information transmitted to us over the internet.

Our website may contain links or plug-ins to other sites. We are not responsible for the content or the privacy practices or policies of those sites.

How can you access and correct your personal information collected by us?

You have the right to access your personal information held by us. You can also make a request for us to correct any inaccurate, incomplete or out-of-date personal information.

For security reasons, a written request may be required to access your information.

We may charge a small fee for the retrieval of your information. We are committed to granting you access to your personal information within a reasonable time frame. We will not refuse you access unless there are legal reasons for doing so. In such circumstances, we will explain those reasons to you.

Browsing our website – does our website collect personal information?

We do not collect personal information from casual visitors to our web site, unless you have voluntarily supplied us with personal information via one of our web forms or via email.

When you visit the website to browse the information it contains, you do so anonymously unless you choose to provide us with information about yourself.

If you do nothing during your visit apart from browse through the website, for example reading pages, viewing images or downloading information without submitting any personal information, we will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. This information does not identify you personally.

The information collected automatically may include the domain from which you access the internet, the date and time you access the website and the internet address of the website from which you linked directly to the website. This information is used in an aggregate form to make the website more useful and attractive to its users.

Information gathered automatically is also used for site management and, in the case of suspected unauthorised activity, law enforcement and possible criminal prosecution.

Cookies and how we use them

A “cookie” is a small data file that can be placed on your hard drive when you visit certain websites. Our website may use cookies to collect, store and sometimes track information for statistical purposes to improve the products and services we provide to you. These cookies do not enable third parties to access any of your personally identifiable information.

The “help” portion of the toolbar on the majority of browsers will direct you on how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to command the browser to tell you when you receive a new cookie, or how to fully disable cookies. We strongly recommend that you leave the cookies activated, however, because cookies enable you to take advantage of some of our most attractive features on the website.

Do we use your personal information for marketing and business development purposes?

We may use your information for research and development of our products or to send you information about other goods or services offered by us which may be of interest to you. If you would prefer not to receive promotional or other material from us, please let us know by sending us an email and we will respect your request.

Updates to this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy will be reviewed and updated by us from time to time. Updated versions of this policy will be published on our website.

The updated Privacy Policy will apply whether or not specific notice of any change has been given.

Making a privacy complaint

Your privacy is important to us and we will make every effort to resolve your concerns. To assist us in helping you, we ask you to follow a simple 3-step process.

Gather all supporting documents about the matter of complaint, think about the questions you want answered and decide on what you want us to do.
Telephone us on 1300 737 155. We will review your situation and if possible, resolve it straight away.
If you are not satisfied with our response, we may require you to submit your complaint in writing by email at salesaust@qep.com with your contact details. We will then investigate your complaint and endeavour to respond to you in writing within 30 days of receipt of your written complaint.

If at this stage, the matter has not been resolved to your satisfaction, you can telephone the Australian Information Commissioner’s hotline on 1300 363 992 or, if calling from outside Australia, + 61 2 9284 9749.

Contact us about privacy

Please direct your privacy related questions and feedback to QEP Customer Service on 1300 737 155.

Further information on privacy

Further information may be obtained on privacy issues in Australia by visiting the Australian Information Commissioner’s website at oaic.gov.au.

Date last revised: 29.03.23

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