Terms and conditions.

Privacy Policy

General

Guide Dogs Queensland is committed to protecting the privacy of personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Commonwealth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APP) 2014.

Our Privacy Statement covers:

• The collection, use and disclosure of personal information
• Guide Dogs Australia’s governance and accountability in regards to personal information
• The integrity and correction of personal information
• The rights of individuals to access their personal information
• We encourage you to check our privacy statement regularly as this Privacy Statement may be reviewed and changed from time to time.

We may also share your information with other Guide Dogs organisations who will handle this information in accordance with their Privacy Statement.

What is personal information?

For the purposes of this Privacy Statement, the term ‘personal information’ has the same meaning as provided in the Privacy Act 1988, that being:

“…information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable:

(a)  whether the information or opinion is true or not; and

(b)  whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not.”

Why we need to collect personal information

Our mission is to provide Guide Dog and specialist mobility services and resources that will enrich the quality of life of Australians living with low vision or blindness. To fulfil our mission, we need to collect certain personal information.

We may need to collect this information:

• To respond to requests for services or resources in line with our mission
• To manage staff, volunteers, and the services they provide
• To seek additional support to help fund our services.

Guide Dogs organisations around Australia receive minimal government funding, and depend on financial support from the community to provide services. This means it is necessary to contact individuals through a range of fundraising activities.

When you make a donation to Guide Dogs Australia or the Guide Dogs Queensland, we will collect financial information (such as credit card information) in order to receive payment for donations and/or orders for Guide Dog products, and a receipt will be provided.

Your details are held securely and are only used for fundraising activities. We understand that there may be times when you are not in a position to make a gift. In this case, you can ask us not to contact you and we will respect your wish.

We may collect information for statistical purposes about services provided and demographic data (optional), so we can tailor the information we provide to our supporters. We may provide statistical information to our sponsors without identifying any individuals.

We may also collect information about potential supporters, sponsors or members from information that is publicly available to help us develop our donor, sponsorship and membership programs.

Types of information we collect

We may request a range of information to assist us to fulfill our mission. This information may include your:

• name
• mailing or street address
• email address
• telephone number/s
• any other contact details you wish to provide
• age or birth date
• profession, occupation or job title
• details of the products and services you have accessed or have enquired about, together with any additional information necessary to deliver those products and services and to respond to your enquiries
• any additional information relating to you that you provide to us directly through our websites or indirectly through use of our websites or online presence, through our representatives or otherwise; and
• information you provide to us through customer surveys or online contacts.

We may also collect some information that is not personal information because it does not identify you or anyone else. For example, we may collect anonymous answers to surveys or information about how users use our website.

Sensitive information

We do not collect any information about racial or ethnic origin, health, political opinions or membership, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade association or union membership, sexual preferences or criminal record, unless:

• the individual has consented, (for example: Police background checks on potential volunteers and staff who will be working with Clients, or details required to provide effective services to Clients), or
• the collection is required by law, or
• the collection is necessary to prevent a serious and imminent threat to the life or health of a person, or
• the collection is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal claim.

How we collect information

We collect personal information from a variety of sources, such as when individuals:

• make an application to receive a service or information
• attend a fundraising event or activity
• respond to our mailing program or a telemarketing call
• voluntarily provide us with personal information
• make a donation to us
• join a Guide Dogs supporters group
• become staff members or volunteers of Guide Dogs Australia or a state or territory-based Guide Dogs organisation.

How we protect your personal information

Guide Dogs Queensland will endeavour to take all reasonable steps to keep personal information accurate and up to date. We ensure this information is securely stored to protect it from loss, misuse or unauthorised access, disclosure or modification. Information is destroyed or permanently de-identified when it is no longer required for any purpose for which it was collected.

Guide Dogs Queensland will only use and disclose personal information with your consent, unless such uses are permitted by law, including without limitation those prescribed by the APP.

Guide Dogs Queensland employees, volunteers and data processors are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by the organisation.

Donor information within the Guide Dogs Queensland database is required to be stored with a high level of security to prevent unauthorised access. Additional protections are required to be in place for confidential and financial information including:

• enforcement of user-based permissions to restrict access to confidential donor information, ensuring only employees whose jobs require access to this information are granted permissions; and
• secure encryption of all donor credit card and bank account details.

Guide Dogs Queensland will use mailing houses, consultants and data cleansing agencies. Such service providers are only used where a confidentiality agreement is in place that upholds the APP to ensure that donor and Client privacy is protected.

The online facility for donations to Guide Dogs Queensland and the purchase of online shopping products via the Guide Dogs Queensland website is secure and encrypted. Transmissions over the internet are never 100 percent secure or error-free. However, Guide Dogs Queensland and its service providers take reasonable steps to protect personal information from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction.

E-Payment security

E-payment security on our site is achieved through encryption and system design. Additionally, the e-payment system does not store customers’ credit card details on a server or database. Communication with your bank is real time and the credit card number is deleted once the communication to the bank has been completed. At no time does the web merchant see any credit card details.

If you do not wish to disclose your credit card details over the internet, you can phone free call within Australia on 1800 484 333 with your credit card details. We accept Visa, Mastercard, Amex and Australian Bankcard.

We only use cookies for e-payment transactions, and on these occasions the cookie contains no personal information. Cookies are not used for secure transactions.

Emailing us, using our website, or visiting our social media pages

We will only record your e-mail address if you send us a message. It will only be used for the purpose for which it was provided – for example seeking further information about our services or making a referral for yourself or another individual. It will not be added to a mailing list unless you request that this be done. We will not disclose your e-mail address without consent.

By using our web site, and voluntarily providing us with personal information, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information in the manner described in this Privacy Statement.

We use Google Analytics to track visits to our website, and use this information to track the effectiveness of our website, including number of visits, length of visit, viewed pages and the technical capabilities of our visitors. While this data is mostly anonymous, sometimes we will connect it to you, for instance in personalising a webpage, or pre-filling a form with your details. For more information on our analytics tools, read Google’s Privacy Policy.

We also use tools that tell us when a computer or device has visited or accessed our content, which allows us to tailor advertising both on our websites and through advertising networks on other websites based on your visits or behaviour through cookies on your device. You can control how cookies are used by accessing the settings on your chosen browser.

You can also engage with Guide Dogs through social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn. You can always control how you receive content through each website’s settings. Occasionally, we may get in touch with you via social media if you are not already a follower by using the details on your record, such as your email address. If you prefer we don’t do this, please let our team know.

Cookies

A ‘cookie’ is a small data file that resides on your computer’s hard drive. Some web sites write to this file when you visit them. A cookie file can contain information such as your user ID in order to track the pages you have visited. A cookie cannot access other information from your hard drive, or from cookies created by other web sites. Cookies by themselves cannot be used to find out the identity of any user. The only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself.

We may send cookies, or small pieces of information, to your web browser in order to collect information on your browsing session. Our cookies do not collect personal information, but may be used for:

• recording preferences that you specify on our websites
• providing general visitor and customer analytics for internal reference
• conducting research to improve our content, products and online services
• assisting with direct marketing, should you opt-in for this service
• supporting security measures, such as requiring you to re-login to a site after your account has been inactive for a period of time.

If you do not wish to receive cookies you may disable these in your web browser, however please note that doing so may affect our site’s ability to function properly. See the ‘Help’ section of your web browser for more information on changing your cookie preferences.

We may log IP addresses (that is, the electronic addresses of computers connected to the internet) to analyse trends, administer the website, provide relevant content to users, monitor fraudulent activity, and gather broad demographic information.

Links to other websites

Our website contains 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.

Your right to access and amend your personal information

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete and up to date.

You have the right to access the personal information we hold about you. If the information we hold is not accurate, complete and up to date, you can ask us to modify our records. If we refuse your request to modify our records, we will write to you stating clearly why we believe that the personal information we hold should not be amended.

You can make a request to access the information we keep about you by contacting our office directly via 07 3500 9001 or the contact form below.