Privacy Policy

The TIO and Your Privacy Rights

Legislation

The TIO is required to adhere to the National Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988.

What personal information does the TIO collect?

The TIO only collects personal information where it is necessary for it to carry out its work. If you lodge a complaint or enquiry with the TIO, we will require the following information:

• Your full name and address;
• Contact details, which may include a business contact number or email address;


• Details of the service the complaint is about - eg telephone number or Internet account;


• Name of the telecommunications company your complaint is about; and


• Specific details of your complaint including relevant dates, accounts and payment details.

How is this information used?

The TIO treats all complaints as confidential between the complainant, the TIO member and this office.

In dealing with a complaint, the TIO will forward your information and complaint details to the telecommunications company concerned - even if you lodge the complaint over the telephone.

If you wish to remain anonymous or do not wish to supply specific information to the TIO, you may do so; however, please note that the TIO will not be able to register your complaint against the company concerned and we will not be in a position to formally investigate your complaint.

Disclosure to other parties

From time to time the TIO may provide complaint information, including personal information, to agencies such as the Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA), the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the Australian Communications Industry Forum (ACIF) and other relevant industry bodies. Where the TIO makes a decision that your case should be referred to another agency, we will gain your consent prior to disclosing any of your personal details.

Certain organisations, such as the police, courts of law and ACMA have the authority to require our office to supply case details that may include personal information. If this occurs, we will comply with the requirements and advise you that we have done so.

On rare occasions the TIO hires specialist contractors to assist with resolving technical and complex complaints. When this occurs the TIO will obtain your consent prior to hiring the contractor and the contractor will be required to sign a confidentiality agreement before commencing.

Other information collected by the TIO

In order to carry out its functions, the TIO maintains a database of telecommunications companies who are members of the TIO. The TIO also maintains a database of individuals and organisations who have asked to receive TIO publications and media releases.

Access to your information

Under the legislation, you have the right (with some exceptions) to access the information about you that the TIO may have collected and held. Access to your information can be arranged by contacting the TIO's Business Manager (see contact details below).

If your file contains reference to a third person, the details of whom may have been supplied to the TIO during the course of an investigation, we will delete all reference to the third party prior to releasing the documentation.

Any complaints about the TIO's privacy policy or procedures can be made to the TIO's Business Manager.

Information Logged on this Website

What information does the TIO website collect?

To help ensure that our website is providing useful advice to as many people as possible, some statistical information is collected by the service provider that hosts our site. When you visit the TIO website, the following information will be collected:

• Your server address
• Your top level domain name (eg.com, .gov, .au, etc)
• Time and date of your visit
• Website pages accessed and documents downloaded
• Previous site visited
• Type of browser used

This information is collected for statistical purposes only. No attempt will be made to identify you or your browsing activities except in the unlikely event of an investigation, where a law enforcement agency may exercise a warrant to inspect the Internet service provider's log files.

Electronic mail addresses

The TIO will only record your email address if you send us a message. This will only be used for the purpose for which you have provided it, and will not be added to a mailing list unless you request that this be done. We will not disclose your email address without your consent (unless you are lodging a complaint against a telephone or Internet service provider - see above for details).

Searches

Search terms that you enter when searching our site are collected, but are not associated with any other information that we collect. We use these search terms to ascertain what people are looking for at our site, and to improve the services that we provide.

Complaints lodged online

When you lodge a complaint on the TIO website about your telephone or Internet service provider, you are required to provide some personal information. The TIO uses this information only to deal with your complaint. Please see above for more information.

Member information

Members of the TIO are able to check and update their companies' details from this website. A member's name, trading name, postal address, customer service phone number, fax number, web address and category of membership (eg telephone service provider or Internet service provider) are made publicly available on this site.

Members' contact details provided to the TIO are used for general liaison, the distribution of information about TIO activities which is relevant to members, and issuing invoices.

TIO mailing list and requests for publications

This site provides the facility for users to order free TIO publications, and to add their details to the TIO mailing list to receive regular copies of our free newsletter. Information provided for these purposes will be used for these purposes only. It will not be distributed further or disclosed without the user's consent.

Links to other sites

This site contains links to other sites. The TIO is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these websites.

User feedback

We seek feedback from users of this site in order to improve the services and information offered by the site. Answering feedback questions is voluntary.

Cookies

Cookies are not used on this site.

Internet security

If you are submitting information over the Internet that you wish to remain private, you should be aware that although all attempts are made to secure information transmitted to this site, there is a possibility that information you submit could be observed by a third party while in transit.

If you would like to use another method to contact us or provide us with information, please telephone, fax or mail us.

Last updated: December 2004