Privacy Policy Statement - Keith Williams Real Estate

This Privacy Policy Statement sets out the policy of Keith Williams Real Estate, with respect to the way in which we obtain, use and disclose information about you, including through our website at www.keithwilliams.com.au . We adopt and are bound by the Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs”) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“the Act”).

We understand and appreciate that you are concerned about privacy, particularly in relation to the use and disclosure of Personal Information. We are committed to providing a high level of privacy in relation to all Personal Information that is collected by us.

This Privacy Policy Statement applies to us but not to other companies, organisations or websites to which we are linked.

For the sake of clarity, this Privacy Policy Statement covers Personal Information collected, used and disclosed by Keith Williams Real Estate in relation to any of the following:

prospective or actual vendors, purchasers, landlords and tenants;
prospective or actual suppliers;
agents or independent contractors, any person who applies to become such an employee, agent or independent contractor;
employees, except where the use or disclosure is directly related to the relationship between us as employer and the employee and relates to an “employee record” about a present or past employee.

Your Consent

You consent to your Personal Information being used in accordance with this Privacy Policy Statement by any one or more of the following:

by communicating with us or by continuing to request our services, including but not limited to by attending one of our offices, attending an open for inspection, making enquiries via internet, email or phone;
providing us with your contact details and consenting in writing for such details to be conveyed to a mortgage broker or financier;
Providing us with your contact details for such details to be conveyed to third party organisations that Keith Williams Real Estate may engage to provide to you our services;
by visiting our website or participating in an online enquiry;
by visiting any website or social media site established by us, including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google, Youtube and LinkedIn (“Social Media Sites”); and
by participating in any activity on a Social Media Site including but not limited to entering competitions, subscribing to our blogs or newsletters, posting, pinning or uploading any material on any Social Media Site, following, liking and/or commenting on us or anything on any Social Media Site (“Social Media Activity”).

What Personal Information do we collect from you?

Generally, the type of Personal Information collected by us includes your name, address, mobile and telephone numbers, facsimile number and email address/s. If applicable, we may also require details of your company’s ABN and/or ACN, financial information including bank account and credit card details, profit and loss statements, balance sheets, your employer and occupation details and title and mortgage details of any relevant property. We may be required to take images of the inside of your home/property via photos or video.

Via Social Media Sites, we may be able to obtain other information about you which may not itself constitute Personal Information or which, when combined with other information, is capable of identifying you, including photos, videos and any other information that you include on our Social Media Sites or sites linked to our Social Media Sites (“Other Sites”). The level of information to which we have access may depend on your privacy settings on such Other Sites.

In some circumstances, you may deal with us anonymously or using a pseudonym. However, in most circumstances it is impracticable to do so because if you do not provide us with the Personal Information that we require or if you provide it in a way that does not identify you, we are likely to be unable to carry out the services requested by you.

How do we collect your Personal Information?

Personal Information may be collected as follows:

when you make a general or specific telephone enquiry;
when you engage us or discuss engaging us to provide services or advice to you;
when you negotiate with us in respect of purchasing or renting a property;
when you provide your details to us at a sale or rental (private or public) “open for inspection” property or an auction;
when we inspect a rental property or property for sale;
when you provide to us or we collect your business card;
when you visit our website and complete an online enquiry or a form for the purpose of requesting and/or accessing certain services on our website;
when you send an email to us;
from third parties such as credit reporting agencies;
from publicly available sources of information; and
through analysis of the Social Media Sites conducted by us or by third parties on our behalf;
any other collection of or incidental or directly or indirectly related to the services we may be able to provide to you.

We collect certain information about Keith Williams Real Estate clients, suppliers and employees including financial information. This information may be obtained from third parties such as lending institutions, financiers, suppliers, creditors, clients and employees or government departments or authorities.

We can obtain information through our website if you send an email message and complete an online enquiry. When you look at our website, we may make a record of your visit. The following information may be logged for statistical purposes:

your Internet Protocol (IP) address;
the date and time of your visit to the site;
the pages you have accessed and documents downloaded; and
the type of browser you were using.

Any such statistical analysis does not identify you.

Tracking technologies such as cookies may be used on our website to recognise a user’s browser each time that user visits our site and to track which pages the user visits whilst on our site and also to push advertisements to your internet protocol address. Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to a computer’s hard drive for record keeping purposes. Most web browsers are set to accept tracking technologies such as cookies. These tracking technologies do not personally identify the user. If you do not wish to receive any cookies you may set your browser to refuse them. However, your use of our website may be affected.

If you view the online webpage relating to any of our properties for lease or sale, you may enquire further about the property by manually completing an online enquiry form or by authenticating your details through your Facebook or social media accounts. If you choose to authenticate your details via your Facebook or social media account, we will be provided with the following information and/or Personal Information:

Facebook or social media user names;
Email address/s;
Phone Number; and
Address (if you have provided Facebook or other social media platforms with these details).

If you ‘like’ or ‘follow’ us or a property via our Facebook or other social media platforms pages, we may be able to view your Facebook page, subject to your Facebook privacy settings.

How do we use your Personal Information?

Any Personal Information that we collect will be used by us to enable us to provide you with the services that you have requested or otherwise to enable us to carry out our functions as professional real estate agents and for the following purposes:

supplying our products and services to you;
providing quality assurance for our services;
responding to your enquiries and feedback regarding our business, our products and services;
monitoring the performance of our business;
marketing including email marketing, promotional and educative activities, including advising you about investment opportunities and other matters that we believe may be of interest to you;
Obtain feedback from you and to promote other goods and services provided by us and our affiliates;
enforcing the terms and conditions of our engagement with you;
ensuring compliance with our statutory obligations;
conducting appropriate credit checks; and
referral to a mortgage broker or financier, subject to express consent.

How do we disclose your Personal Information?

We do not and will not rent, sell or otherwise disclose your Personal Information to any other company or organisation, without your prior consent, where that consent is required by law.

You specifically authorise us to use and disclose your Personal Information in the following ways and for the following purposes:

of or incidental to promotion and marketing to you of our services or those of our business partners or affiliates, including but not limited to advising you about investment opportunities and other matters that we believe may be of interest to you;
to media organisations, including on the internet, to potential buyers or to existing or potential clients, to property inspection consultants, property valuers, business valuers, to owners corporations, to government and statutory bodies, financial institutions or financial products and services providers;
to the vendor or landlord of a property where you are either a purchaser, tenant, prospective purchaser or prospective tenant;
to other real estate agents or other third parties if required by a landlord or a landlord’s financier or legal representative, for the purpose of appraising or valuing a property;
to potential landlords and tenants, to trades people and to other persons to whom we outsource functions of or incidental to acting for a landlord or a tenant;
to the general public when advertising or marketing your rental property (or your home if you are our tenant) including internet advertising or marketing, for the purposes of re-leasing or selling the property;
to the landlord, referees, the relevant Bond Authority, other agents and third party operators of tenancy reference databases including where a tenant has failed to comply with any contractual obligations specified in the relevant tenancy agreement and to other sources necessary to identify and evaluate a potential tenant;
to lending institutions, financiers, creditors and suppliers;
to third party consultants who may from time to time manage our database or computer system;
of or incidental to a sale of all or part of our business to a third party;
as required by law, including where requested by police; and
any other disclosure of or incidental to our carrying out our functions as professional real estate agents.
In relation to the Personal Information of franchisees, the purposes include those mentioned above and also the following:
conducting appropriate credit checks;
verifying information required under any franchise agreement, including by accessing and assessing information received from suppliers, referees, insurers, banks, or any other entity;
to conduct checks for compliance with the franchise agreement and relevant law;
providing franchisee support; and
all other things of or incidental to carrying out our role real estate agent

Disclosure of your Personal Information via Social Media Sites

By engaging in any Social Media Activity on our Social Media Sites, you agree to and are subject to the terms and conditions of such Social Media Sites. Any Personal Information pinned or posted or uploaded by you onto Social Media Sites can be disclosed in accordance with the terms and conditions and privacy policies of such Social Media Sites.

Generally, photos and other material pinned or posted to Social Media Sites will be able to be viewed by the general public. Such photos and other material may be re-pinned and re-posted by others indefinitely and will be visible by anyone visiting the locations to which the photos or other material have been re-pinned. You may be able to remove the photos or other material that you have pinned or posted from the location at which you pinned or posted it. However, any material that has been re-pinned will be out of our control and neither you nor we will be able to remove it from any re-pinned location. We are not responsible for any material that has been re-pinned or re-posted.

We reserve the right to remove any photos, comments or other material that is in any way inappropriate or offensive (in our opinion) from our Social Media Sites.

Cross Border Disclosure

We do not actively disclose your Personal Information overseas unless it is required for us to provide our services. However, some programs, software, online tools, or Social Media Sites used by us, may be based in and/or housed overseas. Our use of such products may involve disclosure of your Personal Information to such organisations overseas. Use and disclosure of your Personal Information by such overseas organisations is in accordance with the terms and conditions and privacy policies of such organisations.

If you consent to disclosure of some of your Personal Information in this manner, we are not required to take steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that such organisations do not breach the APPs in relation to the disclosed information. Having been informed of the possibility that such disclosure may occur, you consent to that disclosure by undertaking or continuing to undertake the type of activities indicating your consent, as specified above.

Direct Marketing

You acknowledge that where we reasonably determine it to be appropriate, we may add some of your Personal Information including your name, address, phone numbers, facsimile number and email address/s to our databases. The databases will be used for ongoing marketing and sales related purposes or to advise you of the other services we can offer.

The type of marketing and sales activities that we undertake includes sending material to you so that you are kept updated in relation to various property related issues or other services that we can offer you.

In each direct marketing communication that you receive from us we will attach prominent and simple instructions on how you can immediately unsubscribe from our mailing list. In any event, you can opt out from receiving direct marketing material by emailing our office and asking to be removed from the mailing list. Alternatively, you can fax or mail a request asking for deletion. There is no fee for such deletion.

Security

We are committed to ensuring the security of your Personal Information and we will take all reasonable steps to protect this Information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, including:

ensuring the physical security of our premises and databases/records;
restricting access to personnel who need that information in order for us to be able to provide our products and services; and
industry standard technological measures, such as computer passwords, data back-up, anti-virus software and firewalls.

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure the Information is accurate and up-to-date and relevant for the purposes for which it may be used pursuant to this Privacy Policy.

Please note that our website does not provide systems for secure transmission of Personal Information across the internet, except where otherwise indicated. When emailing or providing Personal Information to us via our website, please be aware that there are risks involved in transmitting such information across the Internet.

Our website contains links to other websites. We have no control over the privacy practices employed at other websites and we accept no responsibility for Personal Information provided via unsecured websites.

We cannot provide any guarantee with respect to the security of your Personal Information and we will not be liable for any breach of security or unintended loss or disclosure of information due to the website being linked to the Internet.

Access to Your Personal Information

Our Privacy Officer will ensure that your Personal Information is accurate, complete and up to date and relevant to the purpose for which we are able to use your Personal Information.

We take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify Personal Information that is no longer required. However, we may be required by law to retain our files and file information which contain your Personal Information for up to seven years.

If you wish to view the Personal Information we hold about you, please send your request by email, mail or fax to one of our Privacy Officers. All relevant contact details are at the end of this Privacy Policy Statement. A fee may apply for such access. If we deny your request for access, we will let you know why.

If you wish to amend your Personal Information because it is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, please contact our Privacy Officer. If we refuse to amend information we hold about you, we will let you know why.

When your Personal Information is amended, we will take reasonable steps to inform third parties to whom we have disclosed your Personal Information, so that they can amend their records.

Changes to The Statement

From time to time we may decide to amend or update this Privacy Policy Statement. When this occurs, we will post any changes on the website. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy Statement so that you remain informed as to how we are protecting your Personal Information.

Complaints

If you believe that we have not complied with our obligations pursuant to the Act, or have a complaint about the use or disclosure of your Personal Information by us, please contact our Privacy Officer.

Our Privacy Officer is responsible for liaising with you and with the relevant agency staff to ensure that the issues you have raised are fully examined, and that your complaint is handled in accordance with this process.

We will treat the process, and all the details of your complaint, in strict confidence. If we need to discuss any issues arising from your complaint with someone outside of the agency, we will obtain your consent first.

We will always try to give you a fair opportunity to explain your case. You should make your initial complaint as clear as possible. Please provide as much detail as possible about the nature of your complaint including the outcome you would like in order to resolve the matter. We may want to meet you in person to discuss your concerns and try to find a satisfactory solution.

What action will we take in response to your Privacy complaint?

We will endeavour to resolve your complaint as soon as possible. However, the length of this time will depend on the nature and complexity of the issues you have raised.

You will receive acknowledgement of receipt of the complaint from us within approximately five business days. You will be given an estimate of how long it may take us to deal with the matter but we will endeavour to finalise the matter within 30 days.

If we decide that your complaint is justified, we will then decide what action we should take in response. We will always try to match our response to the nature of your complaint and your desired outcome, but this may not always be possible.

Some of the things that we decide to do include:

Take steps to rectify the problem or issue you have raised
Provide you with additional information or advice so you can understand what happened or how we have dealt with it
Take steps to change our policies or procedures if your complaint identifies a problem in the way we are doing things

Sometimes it will not be possible to resolve a complaint to everyone’s satisfaction. If we are unable to resolve the matter, you may wish to escalate the matter to the Privacy Commissioner via an online privacy complaint form which can be found at: http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/making-a-privacy-complaint.

Complaint Handling

How to make a complaint:

Keith Williams Real Estate aims to make it easy for you to bring any problems or complaints to our attention.

You should first raise your issue with the agent, representative or property manager who is handling your business.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome from the relevant Keith Williams Real Estate representative, you can also make a complaint directly to the Director:

Please provide as much detail as possible about your complaint, including the outcome you would like.

If you need help to describe or send your complaint, or if you would like to discuss your concerns informally first, please feel free to contact us.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT:

Nerelle Lawn – Property Manager

E: nerellel@keithwilliams.com.au

SALES:

Grant Williams – Director

E: grantw@keithwilliams.com.au

T: 03 5174 7777

37-39 Franklin Street, Traralgon 3844

How we will handle your complaint

We will oversee the complaints process. We are responsible for working with you and relevant agency staff, to ensure that the issues you raise are fully examined and that your complaint is handled in accordance with this process.

We will always try to give you a fair opportunity to explain your case. You should make your initial complaint as clear as possible. Sometimes we may want to meet you in person to discuss your concerns and try to find a satisfactory solution.

What if you still feel your complaint remains unresolved?

Sometimes it will not be possible to resolve a complaint to everyone’s satisfaction, and you might want to escalate the matter to the Estate Agents Resolution Service (EARS) at Consumer Affairs Victoria.

EARS can deal with enquiries and complaints about real estate agents and offers information, advice and dispute resolution services on real estate issues.

You can telephone EARS on 1300 73 70 30 weekdays to discuss your complaint.

By visiting and using this website you agree as follows:

DISCLAIMER

Keith Williams Real Estate Pty Ltd, its directors, partners, employees and related entities responsible for maintaining this website believe that the information contained on this website is correct. However, no representation or warranties of any nature whatsoever are given, intended or implied, and you should rely on your own inquiries as to the accuracy of any information or material available from this website.

Please note that information provided on this website is general information only, is subject to change without notice and should not be relied on as a substitute for legal, financial, real estate or other expert advice. Keith Williams Real Estate Pty Ltd disclaims all liability and responsibility, including for negligence, for any direct or indirect loss or damage suffered by any person arising out of any use of this website or any information or material available from it.

COPYRIGHT

All material available or accessible from this website is copyright material owned by Keith Williams Real Estate Pty Ltd. Apart from fair dealing permitted by the Copyright Act 1968, visitors to the site are granted permission to download and display any of the website material for private purposes only.

For intended use of any copyright material beyond private or research uses, no part of this website may be used, produced or copied by any means or in any form without the prior permission of Keith Williams Real Estate Pty Ltd.