PRIVACY POLICY v6.1
Australian Premier Finance Company Pty Ltd is referred to in this document as APF.
This Privacy Policy outlines to you all the ways in which APF collects, holds, protects
and manages your personal information and what sort of information we hold about you.
1. Collection of Information
Personal information is information or an opinion about an individual who is identified or
may be reasonably identifiable, whether it is true or not and whether recorded in a material
form or not. The kinds of personal information we collect and hold about you includes:
(a) your name, address and date of birth;
(b) your credit and repayment history including any credit default information;
(c) details of loans for which you have applied whether or not you were successful in
applying for such loans;
(d) your income and expenditure and financial capacity;
(e) your employment details;
(f) whether or not you have ever been involved in any litigation in respect of credit
provided to you; and
(g) information about dependents and other obligations you may have to people
financially dependent upon you.
We only collect information that is reasonably necessary to our business function or
activities. The information is collected for the purpose of being able to conduct business
with and provide credit to you as well as comply with our legal obligations.
We will not collect sensitive information about you unless you consent and the information
is reasonably necessary for one or more of our functions and the law, court or tribunal
permits its collection.
As far as it is reasonable and practical, the information that we collect is provided by you.
However, APF may also verify and collect personal information from other sources
including:
(h) your employer;
(i) credit reporting bodies;
(j) publicly available sources (eg telephone directories);
(k) third party brokers (eg insurance companies);
(l) your representative/s (legal advisor, financial counsellor); and
(m) referees that you have provided;
(n) electronic verification of identity from the document issuer or official record holder via third party systems for the purpose of confirming your identity.
We hold your personal information in secure files in both written and electronic form.
Responsible Lending requirements mean that we must make reasonable inquiries about your objectives and financial situation. We must then take reasonable steps to verify your financial situation and make an assessment about whether a credit contract is „not unsuitable‟ for you.
We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information in order to consider whether to provide credit to you, to actually provide the credit and to enforce your obligations under any credit contract we have with you and for related or incidental purposes. To this end we may use personal information for:
- monitoring and evaluating products and services;
- research;
- assisting you with your queries;
- detecting and preventing fraud or credit loss;
- predicting customer behaviour.
If you do not provide this personal information, we may not be able to provide you with the product or services that you have requested.
Occasionally, your personal information may be provided to us by agents, or by your family members or friends. We will take reasonable steps to tell you we have that information unless it is obvious that you know or would expect us to have it. For example, if you submit an application through a broker acting on your behalf.
You are able to gain access to the information, unless restricted by law. We set out below how you may gain access and seek correction of any information that we hold.
You may complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles that binds us. We set out below how you may make a complaint and how we will deal with it.
2 Use and Disclosure
APF will not use or disclose your personal information other than for the primary purpose of collection unless:
(a) you have consented to the disclosure;
(b) it is related to the primary purpose and you would reasonably expect APF to use and disclose the information for that purpose and it is related to the primary purpose;
(c) the use or disclosure is reasonably necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim;
(d) the use or disclosure is reasonably necessary for the purposes of a confidential alternative dispute resolution process;
(e) APF believes disclosure is necessary to protect an individual’s life, health or safety or to prevent a threat to public health or safety;
(f) APF suspects unlawful activity is or may be engaged in and disclosure is necessary as part of the investigation or reporting to relevant authorities; or
(g) use or disclosure is required or authorised by law.
If APF reasonably believes it is necessary to co-operate with an enforcement body performing law enforcement functions, in which case a written note will be made of the disclosure.
We also disclose personal information to organisations that perform services that are specific and essential to the function of our business.
The organisations to which we may disclose your information may include:
(a) insurance companies and claims assessors;
(b) brokers from whom we receive your applications for credit
(c) agents through which we provide the credit; and
(d) agents engaged in the enforcement and recovery function of our business (eg debt collection, repossession agents and auctioneers).
We may give information about you to a credit reporting agency, but only information allowed by the law, for the following purposes:
(a) to obtain a consumer credit report about you; or
(b) to allow the credit reporting agency to create or maintain a credit information file containing information about you.
There may be a time when we decide to sell the loans that we have made. If so we may disclose personal information to any person, or their advisors, to whom our rights in those assets are to be transferred.
This information may be given before, during or after the provision of credit to you.
3 Data quality
APF will take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information it collects, uses or discloses is accurate, complete, relevant and up-to-date. Please tell us if any of the details you give us change. If you believe the information we hold is not accurate, complete or up-to-date you should tell us.
4 Data security
APF will take steps to protect personal information it holds from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.
We will also take steps to destroy personal information if it is no longer needed for the purpose for which the information may be used or disclosed. This is subject to legal obligations we may have to retain information for certain periods of time. Steps we take to ensure information security include:
(a) educating our staff;
(b) employing firewalls, virus scanning tools;
(c) using a secure computer system;
(d) storing physical records in a secure place;
(e) guarding against unauthorised access to premises.
5 Openness
This Policy will be given to anyone upon request either electronically or in paper format. You may download if from our website at www.australianpremierfinance.com.au. APF will let the person know generally the sort of personal information it holds, and why and how it holds, uses and discloses the information.
6 Access and correction
APF will provide individuals, upon request, with access to their personal information with the following exceptions:
(a) providing access would pose a threat to the life, health, or safety of any person or to public health or safety;
(b) access would have unreasonable impact upon the privacy of other individuals.
(c) the request is frivolous or vexatious;
(d) the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings between APF and the individual and would not be accessible by the process of discovery in those proceedings;
(e) providing access would reveal the intentions of APF in relation to negotiations with the person in a way that will prejudice the negotiations;
(f) providing access would be unlawful or relates to a legal requirement requiring APF not to provide the person with that information;
(g) APF has reason to suspect that unlawful activity or misconduct of a serious nature, that relates to our functions or activities, has been or may be engaged in and giving access would be likely to prejudice the taking of appropriate action in relation to the matter;
(h) giving access would be likely to prejudice one or more enforcement related activities conducted by or on behalf of an enforcement body; or
(i) giving access would reveal evaluative information generated with APF in connection with a commercially sensitive decision-making process.
We will not charge for providing access to personal information or for lodging a request for access.
If a person establishes that personal information held by APF in not accurate, complete and up- to-date, and then we will take steps to correct the information, and, if reasonable to do so, notify third parties to whom the information was previously disclosed. APF will not do so if it is impracticable or unlawful.
If a person disagrees with us about the information being correct, they may ask us to attach a statement to the information claiming the information is not correct, and we will take steps to do so.
If APF denies a person access to their personal information, it will provide a reason and the mechanisms available to complain about the refusal.
You may ask for a copy of a credit report we have obtained about you from a credit reporting body. The best way to obtain an up-to-date credit report is to contact the credit reporting body directly.
We may use multiple credit reporting bodies.
7 Identifiers
APF has its own system for allocating an “identifier” to each of its clients. It does not adopt identifiers provided by any other agency, organisation or service provider, and does not disclose identifiers assigned to a person by another agency, organisation or service provider.
8 Anonymity & Psuedonymity
If it is lawful and practicable, a person has the option of not identifying themselves or using a pseudonym when entering transactions with APF. However, this is unlikely to be the case if a person is applying to us for the provision of credit.
9 Trans border data flows
It is likely that APF may disclose your personal information to overseas recipients.
APF may transfer personal information about individuals to someone in a foreign country only if:
(a) we reasonably believe the recipient of the information is subject to a law that effectively upholds the principles of privacy, as held in Australia and APF has taken steps to ensure that the information will not be used inconsistently with Australian requirements to privacy and there are mechanisms you can access to take action to enforce those principles of privacy; or
(b) the you consent; or
(c) the transfer is necessary for performance of a contract; or
(d) the transfer is for the benefit of you, and it is impracticable to gain your consent, or if it were practicable you would be likely to give consent.
It is not practicable to specify in which countries the recipients of any disclosed information may be located.
10 Sensitive information
Sensitive information is information relating to your religious views, ethnicity, political opinion, criminal record, health personal information or sexual preference.
Collection of this information is restricted by provisions of the Privacy Act.
APF will collect this information if it is reasonably necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim.
11 Complaints
APF is bound by the Privacy Act (Cth) 1988 and the thirteen (13) Australian Privacy Principles for the handling of personal information.
We have developed procedures in line with our obligations under the Act.
If you think that we have not complied with our own policy or our legal requirements regarding your personal information contact our office to discuss your complaint. If you request, we will give you a copy of our Complaints Procedures.
We will attempt to resolve the situation as soon as you contact us. Contact details:
Mail: PO Box 83, Tanilba Bay NSW 2319
Office: 3 Industrial Cres, Lemon Tree Passage NSW 2319
Telephone: 02 4984 5890
E-mail: admin@apfc.com.au