Privacy Policy

This privacy policy sets out how Elementar Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 57 169 384 883) ("we", "us" and "our") manage, collect, use, disclose and hold personal information about you. The expressions "you" and "your" refer to each and every individual whose personal information we may handle from time to time. For information on how our related entities manage, collect, use, disclose and hold personal information about you, please refer to the privacy policy accessible from the relevant website. 

We are subject to the operation of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles ("APPs") (together, “Privacy Laws”). This policy explains how we handle personal information relating to individuals so as to ensure we meet our obligations under the Privacy Laws. To the extent we handle your credit information, we will also comply with the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2014 (Version 2) ("Credit Reporting Code").

Privacy Laws regulate the collection and use of “personal information”, which includes information or an opinion about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.

1. We collect personal information by various means: when you make an application for a credit account with us;

2. when you make an inquiry or order in relation to goods or services by way of an order or through our website located at www.elementar.com ;

3. in administering and performing any contracts with service providers;

4. when you contact us via telephone or email;

5. from correspondence (whether in writing or electronically);

6. through any mobile applications provided by our organisation;

7. while conducting customer satisfaction and market research surveys;

8. when administering any of our goods and services;

9. when obtaining information from credit reporting bodies;  and

10. as otherwise required to manage our business.

However, in certain cases we may collect personal information from publically available sources and third parties, such as suppliers, recruitment agencies, contractors, our clients and business partners, social media and similar websites. If we collect personal information about you from a third party we will, where appropriate, request that the third party inform you that we are holding such information, how we will use and disclose it, and that you may contact us to gain access to and correct and update the information.

The type of personal information that we collect may include (but is not limited to):

1. contact and identification information such as your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, date of birth and drivers licence or ID number; 

2. financial information about your assets, occupation and income, account balances, account activities, payment history and transactions with us or third parties;

3. credit information, being credit related personal information lawfully created and accessible within the Australian credit reporting system including:

   1. identification information;
   2. consumer credit liability information which includes information about your credit providers and credit accounts, including the dates on which the accounts are opened and closed, their limits, and their terms and conditions (or any changes to their terms and conditions); 
   3. whether you have or have not met any monthly repayment obligations;
   4. whether you have defaulted on a payment (ie. a payment that is at least 60 days overdue and over $ 150.00 in value) provided we have notified you in accordance with the Privacy Act; 
   5. whether you have paid any amount previously reported as being in default; 
   6. that another credit provider has sought credit-related personal information about you from a credit reporting body;
   7. information about the types of consumer or commercial credit, and the amounts of credit, you have sought from a credit provider; 
   8. information about court proceedings related to credit provided to you or for which you have applied; 
   9. personal insolvency information and other publicly available information relating to your credit worthiness; 
   10. a credit provider’s reasonable belief that you have committed a serious credit infringement; 
   11. any other information lawfully obtainable within the Australian credit reporting system; 
   12. credit eligibility information which is credit-related information about you that we may obtain from a credit reporting body such as CreditorWatch Pty Ltd ("Credit Check Provider") (the details of which are set out in paragraph 3 below), together with information we derive from such information based on its own analysis including internally generated scores, ratings and other assessments used to evaluate your credit worthiness. We generally receive from the Credit Check Provider's information about existing credit accounts, previous defaults, repayment history information etc; and
   13. sensitive information including criminal record information where you are applying for a position with us and it is relevant to the recruitment process through which you must progress following your application to us. In some circumstances we may also hold other personal information provided by you.

We do not generally collect sensitive information about you, but in the unlikely event we do need to collect sensitive information, we will only do so where required or authorised by law or with your prior consent.

If we do not collect the personal information listed above, it may limit our ability to provide you with products and services. 

If you provide personal information to us about someone else, you must ensure that you are entitled to disclose that information to us. For example, you should take reasonable steps to ensure the individual concerned is aware of the various matters detailed in this Privacy Policy and has consented to the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information as described in this Privacy Policy.

We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for the purpose for which it has been provided, any other purpose you have consented to and any other purpose permitted under the Privacy Laws. This may include collecting, holding, using or disclosing your personal information for any of the following purposes:

• to manage and promote our business, including to offer and provide you with our goods and services;
• to design, manage, price and provide our products and services;
• to manage our relationship with you;
• to communicate with you, including (but not limited to), emailing you tax invoices, dispatch and tracking information, returns and exchange authorisations;
• assess an application for, and if successful, administering your credit application and account, application for employment or otherwise for the purpose of engaging you as a contractor or consultant;
• to contact you;
• to improve our service to you and your experience with us; or
• to comply with laws, and assist government and law enforcement agencies.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties for the purposes for which we may use your information as described above. This may include disclosing information to:

• our related entities;
• third party organisations such as our affiliates, business partners, advertising partners, mailing and printing houses, IT providers, analytics providers, payment service providers, professional advisors and other service providers;
• anyone who is considering acquiring an interest in our assets or businesses (or any part of them) as part of a due diligence or sale process; and/or
• a person or organisation that is located outside of Australia, including to our related bodies located in Germany, USA, Italy, France, Japan, India, China, UK, Korea and third party organisations located in Germany or the USA. 

We will only disclose your personal information for other purposes if you consent, where we are required or authorised by law to do so, where the disclosure is authorised under the Privacy Laws, or where we believe you would reasonably expect us to disclose your personal information for a purpose which is related to (or in the case of sensitive information, directly related to) the primary purpose of collection including to respond to subpoenas, judicial processes or legitimate requests by law enforcement officials or government agencies or departments. 

If we do need to disclose information overseas, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipient does not breach the Privacy Laws in its handling of the personal information.  However, it is not practicable for us to specify in advance every location where your personal information may be sent. It is possible that information will be transferred to a jurisdiction where you will not be able to seek redress under the Privacy Act and that does not have an equivalent level of data protection as Australia. We will not be accountable for how these overseas recipients handle your personal information. By providing your personal information to us, you consent to our disclosure of your personal information to these parties for purposes necessary or useful in the course of operating our business, and agree that APP 8.1 will not apply to such disclosures.  For the avoidance of doubt, in the event that an overseas recipient breaches the APPs, that entity will not be bound by, and you will not be able seek redress under, the Privacy Act.  If you have any concerns regarding the transfer of your personal information overseas please contact us using the details provided below.

From time to time we may engage an overseas recipient to provide services to us, such as cloud-based storage solutions.  Please note that the use of overseas service providers to store personal information will not always involve a disclosure of personal information to that overseas provider.  However, by providing us with your personal information, you consent to the storage of such information on overseas servers and acknowledge that APP 8.1 will not apply to such disclosures. For the avoidance of doubt, in the event that an overseas recipient breaches the APPs, that entity will not be bound by, and you will not be able seek redress under, the Privacy Act.

We may also disclose your personal information, including your credit information, to lenders, other credit providers and credit reporting bodies. In particular, we may disclose to our Credit Check Provider information about you failing to meet your payment obligations or if you commit a serious credit infringement. Our Credit Check Provider may include any information provided to it by us in reports that are then provided to other credit providers for the purpose of such credit providers assessing your credit worthiness. Our disclosures of your personal information to third parties are on a confidential basis, in accordance with relevant non-disclosure agreements, and/or otherwise in accordance with law. We may also disclose your personal information with your consent or if disclosure is required or authorised by law. 

CreditorWatch Pty Ltd can be contacted: 

• in accordance with its privacy policy, including its management of credit related personal information, at: https://creditorwatch.com.au/privacy/; and/or 
• at: Level 12, 76-80 Clarence Street, Sydney, NSW 2000 or otherwise by phone on 1300 501 312; 

Cookies are small text files that are sent to your browser by our web server when you visit our website and are stored on your end device for later retrieval. 

We may also collect information about how you interact with our website, including (but not limited to) your IP address, the time of your server inquiry, the pages you visit on our website, the date and duration of your visit, the identification data of the browser and operating system type you use and the website from which you visit us, in order to help us ensure the functionality and security of our information technology systems and optimise our web content.

We use technically necessary cookies to enable the proper use of our website and marketing cookies to assist us in collecting information about the websites you visit so we can show you advertisements that may be of interest to you and to improve our website taking your preferences into consideration. 

You can withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by making the appropriate settings in the cookie banner and/or in the settings of your browser or by deleting the cookies in your browser 

You can delete already set cookies at any time via the settings of your browser or other software programs. Please note that in this case not all functions of our website may be available.

We take reasonable steps to secure any personal information which we hold about you and to keep this information accurate and up-to-date. Personal information is stored in a secure operating environment that is only accessible to authorised persons and information security measures are in place to protect this information from misuse, interference and loss.  Credit eligibility information, such as information we receive from our Credit Check Provider for the purpose of assessing credit worthiness, is stored through equally secure methods set out in this paragraph.

Our website does not provide facilities for the secure transmission of information across the internet. Users should be aware that there are inherent risks transmitting information across the internet.

We will take such steps that are reasonable in the circumstances (if any) to destroy or de-identify personal information when it is no longer required for the purpose(s) it was provided.

Like most businesses, marketing is important to our continued success. We believe we have a unique range of products and services that we provide to customers at a high standard.  We therefore like to stay in touch with customers and let them know about new opportunities. We may provide you with information about new products, services and promotions either from us, or from third parties which may be of interest to you.

We will not use or disclose credit related personal information for direct marketing purposes except to the extent permitted under the Privacy Act, for the purpose of our Credit Check Provider assessing your eligibility to receive direct marketing communications sent on our behalf. You may make a request directly to our Credit Check Provider not to use your credit related personal information for these purposes.

You may opt out at any time if you no longer wish to receive commercial messages from us.  You can make this request by contacting our Privacy Officer or through any opt-out mechanism contained in a marketing communication to you.

We will take such steps as are reasonable to ensure that the personal information which we collect remains accurate, up to date and complete. 

If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about this Privacy Policy, or how we handle your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer:

The Privacy Officer
Address: Level 6, 8 Spring Street, Sydney, NSW 2000
Telephone: +61 282960480
Email: privacy-au@elementar.com

You may contact our Privacy Officer to request access to the personal information that we hold about you and/or to make corrections to that information, at any time. On the rare occasions when we refuse access, we will provide you with a written notice stating our reasons for refusing access.  

We will provide you with access to your personal information held by us unless we are permitted under the Privacy Act to refuse to provide you with such access, such as where the request relates to an existing or anticipated legal proceeding or if your request is vexatious. our Privacy Officer if you:

(a)    wish to have access to the personal information which we hold about you;
(b)    consider that the personal information which we hold about you is not accurate, complete or up to date; or
(c)    require further information on our personal information handling practices.

There is no charge for requesting access to your personal information, but we may require you to meet our reasonable costs in actually providing you with access.

If you consider that the information which we hold about you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, we will take reasonable steps, consistent with our obligations under the Privacy Act, to correct that information if you so request. We may need to verify the accuracy of new information you provide us before making corrections to your personal information held by us.

Where necessary to resolve a request for correction of your credit related personal information, we may also consult with other relevant entities, including but not limited to our Credit Check Provider. Our use or disclosure of your credit related personal information for correction purposes is permitted by the Privacy Act.

We will respond to all requests for access and/or correction within a reasonable time.

If you would like further information about how we manage your personal information, have any queries or feedback relating to this Policy, or wish to lodge a complaint, please contact our Privacy Officer through details listed above.

If your complaint relates to credit related personal information and/or our failure to comply with our obligations regarding credit related personal information under the Privacy Act and/or the Credit Reporting Code:

• we will acknowledge your complaint within 7 days of receipt and endeavour to resolve it within 30 days, unless we inform you otherwise and seek your agreement in writing; 
• we may consult with relevant third parties such as our Credit Check Provider and/or other credit providers, in order to sufficiently and expeditiously resolve the complaint; and 
• if your complaint relates to our refusal to provide access to, or correct, your credit related personal information, you may complain directly to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. 

Our Privacy Officer is responsible for coordinating the investigation of any complaints and resolving privacy-related issues. The Privacy Officer will manage any complaints received in a timely manner and provide you with a response to your complaint. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may take your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, contactable by telephone on 1300 363 992, via the OAIC website at www.oaic.gov.au, by mail to GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001 or by email at enquiries@oaic.gov.au.