Collecting Personal Information About You

What is personal information?

Personal information means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether that information is true or not and whether recorded in a material form or not.

Sensitive information is a subset of personal information that is generally afforded a higher level of protection. It includes your health information as well as information about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of political, professional or trade associations, or trade unions, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or practices and criminal record.

The kinds of personal information we hold

We only collect personal information that is reasonably necessary for our functions and activities. The kinds of personal information we collect and hold will depend upon the type of products and services we provide to you or purchase from you, and may include:

1. Your name, address and other contact details
2. Credit related information (see our Credit Policy for more information)
3. Records of and information about communications between us and you, including complaints, whether by telephone, email, mail or in person, and which may include health information
4. Information and opinions that you provide us when you respond to one of our surveys
5. Information that you post to one of our websites or social media pages
6. Information that you provide to us when you complete a job application 

We will usually collect your personal information from you, but we may also collect it from third parties, depending on the type of products and services we provide to you or you purchase from us. This may include:

1. Your name and contact details when a friend shares one of our competitions with you via one of our websites or social media pages (such as Facebook)
2. Credit and related information from a credit reporting body (see our Credit Policy for more information)
3. Information about you given to us by a family member or other person acting on your behalf
4. Information about you from other suppliers of our products.

Where practical, you can deal with us anonymously or using a pseudonym if you wish. However in many instances, if we cannot identify you or if you do not provide us with the personal information we request, then we may not be able to provide you with our products or services, respond to your enquiries or complaints, or assess credit or job applications.

Cookie Policy

In addition to any personal information that you provide to us via one of our websites, such as when you complete an online form, our websites also use cookies to capture data about your internet activity.  We do not use cookie data to personally identify you. If you do not want to use cookies, you can set your internet browser to reject them. 

How We Hold Your Personal Information

We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We hold personal information in electronic documents on our own password protected IT system, or on a CRM database hosted by a third party storage provider located in the United States. Where in hard copy, documents containing personal information are held at secure locations within our offices.

Where we no longer need your personal information for a purpose for which we are permitted to use it under the Privacy Act, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify this information, unless we are required by or under an Australian law or court/tribunal order to retain the information.

Using And Disclosing Your Personal Information

We will normally use and disclose the personal information we collect about you for the following purposes:

1. To communicate with you about current and new products and services offered or distributed by us, whether by email, SMS, telephone or mail
2. To help us to understand the needs of our customers and to improve our products and services
3. To process your job application
4. To process your application for commercial credit (see our Credit Policy for more information)
5. To administer our competitions
6. To respond to your complaints or requests
7. To contact you
8. To comply with our reporting obligations to regulatory authorities
9. Other uses which are reasonably necessary for our functions and activities.

We may disclose your personal information to organisations to whom we outsource functions, such as a mailing house, marketing agencies or other third party service providers, so that they can provide the services that we have contracted out to them. This may involve us disclosing personal information to organisations located overseas, including Salesforce.com in the USA.

Requests To Stop Direct Marketing

You may at any time ask us to stop sending you direct marketing communications or being contacted by or on our behalf, by a particular means or at all. You can do this by simply emailing us at info@patties.com.au or by calling 1800 650 069 and advising us of your request.

Access To and Correction Of Your Personal Information

You have a right to access personal information that we hold about you, subject to certain exceptions set out in the Privacy Act.  We will deal with all requests for access to personal information within a reasonable period. We may need to take steps to verify your identity before we can provide access. Requests for a large amount of information, or information which is not currently in use, may require further time before a response can be given. If we refuse your request we will write to you to explain why and how you can make a complaint about our decision.

Generally, if we are satisfied that your information needs correcting or if you make a request, we will take reasonable steps to amend any personal information about you held by us which is inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, irrelevant or misleading. Again we may need to take steps to verify your identity before we can make a correction. If we are not satisfied that your personal information is inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, irrelevant or misleading , and if you ask us, we will take reasonable steps to associate with that record a statement to the effect that you claim this to be the case. Again, if we refuse your request, we will write to you to explain why and how you can make a complaint about our decision.

To help us keep your personal information up to date, please let us know if your details change by contacting us (our contact details are below).

Complaints

If you are concerned that we may have breached your privacy and wish to make a complaint, please write to our complaints manager using the details below. We will investigate your complaint and do our best to resolve it. We will respond to you within a reasonable period, which will generally be within 30 days of receiving your complaint. 

Patties Foods Ltd

161–169 Princes Highway
Bairnsdale
Victoria 3875
Tel: 1800 650 069

Email: info@patties.com.au

If you are not happy with our response, you can contact the hotline of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) on 1300 363 992 to make a query about your privacy rights, or to lodge a complaint about how we have handled you personal information. The OAIC has the power to investigate the matter and make a determination.

Changes To Our Privacy Policy

From time to time it may be necessary for us to update our privacy policy. We may notify changes to our privacy policy by posting an amended version on our website (www.patties.com.au) and the changes will take effect at this time. Our privacy policy is available on our website (www.patties.com.au) or you can obtain a copy by contacting us.

Our Workplace Policy

Patties Foods Ltd

Last updated: March 2014