STATEMENT OF PRIVACY POLICY

OUR COMMITMENT

At WLM Financial Services Pty Limited (WLM) we recognise that your privacy is very important to you – it is to us as well. We handle personal information provided by and about people every day. By personal information we mean information or an opinion about a person whose identity is apparent or can reasonably be ascertained.

We support the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) set out in thePrivacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act). Our aim is to support and comply with the APPs that form the basis of laws introduced to strengthen privacy protection for the general public. The information set out below is largely a summary of our objectives under the APPs.

We believe that this Statement will address any potential concerns you may have about how personal information you provide WLM is collected, held, used, corrected, disclosed and transferred. You can obtain more information on request about the way we manage the personal information we hold. If you seek any further information please contact us in one of the ways set out below.

COLLECTION

Our organisation is subject to certain legislative and regulatory requirements which necessitate us obtaining and holding detailed information which personally identifies you and/or contains information or an opinion about you (Personal Information) which may include the below:

  • your name, date of birth, address, telephone number, e-mail address;
  • your bank details and credit card details;
  • your tax file number;
  • employment details and employment history;
  • details of your current financial circumstances, including your assets and liabilities (both actual and potential), income, expenditure, insurance cover and superannuation;
  • information about your employment history, employment circumstances, family commitments and social security eligibility;
  • any other information that may be required to form a basis for recommendations.

If you operate a social media or other online account, we may collect your username associated with that account, and any other information or content you have made public in connection with that account. Such information or content may include personal information.

We may also collect information about your interests and preferences, other demographic information such as your gender, age and location, and anonymous information such as your IP address, browser type, and other software or hardware information. Generally, this information is not personal information as it cannot be used to identify you.

As we are required pursuant to the Corporations Act 2001 (Corporations Act) to collect sufficient information to ensure appropriate advice can be given in respect of recommendations made to our clients, if you elect not to provide us with the personal information referred to above, we may elect to terminate our retainer with you if we believe we are unable to provide you with a complete service.

At or before the time we collect Personal Information from you we will take reasonable steps to inform you why we are collecting that personal information, who else we might disclose that personal information to and what will happen if you do not provide personal information to us.

Where reasonable and practicable, we will only collect personal information about you, from you.

Wherever it is lawful and practicable, we will give you the option of not identifying yourself or not providing personal information when entering transactions with us. However, failure to provide full and complete information we request may mean that we are unable to provide services to you fully and properly.

Once we hold personal information we will take reasonable steps to keep it accurate, complete and up-to-date.

USE AND DISCLOSURE

We will not use or disclose Personal Information collected by us for any purpose other than:

  • the purposes for which it was provided or secondary related purposes in circumstances where you would reasonably expect such use or disclosure; or
  • where you have consented to such disclosure; or
  • where the APPs authorise use or disclosure where required or authorised under law, in circumstances relating to public health and safety and in connection with certain operations by or on behalf of an enforcement body.

We are obliged pursuant to the Corporations Act to maintain certain transaction records and make those records available for inspection by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

It is a condition of our agreement with each of our representatives that they adopt and adhere to this privacy policy. You can be assured that your information will be maintained by any agent or representative in accordance with this policy. If you have any concerns in this regard, you should contact us by any of the methods detailed below.

In the event that we propose to sell our business we may disclose your Personal Information to potential purchasers for the purpose of them conducting due diligence investigations. Any such disclosure will be made in confidence and it will be a condition of that disclosure that no personal information will be used or disclosed by them.

In the event that a sale of our business is affected, we may transfer your personal information to the purchaser of the business. As a client you will be advised of any such transfer.

We may disclose your personal information to the extent that we are required to do so by law, including in connection with any legal proceedings or anticipated legal proceedings, or in order to comply with any legal obligation, or to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights.

You agree that we may disclose your Personal Information in any of these circumstances. We disclaim all liability for any privacy breaches by third parties to whom we have disclosed your Personal Information in accordance with this policy.

You may withdraw your consent to use or disclose your personal information at any time. To withdraw this consent please contact us at the details below. Please note that withdrawing your consent may mean that we are unable to provide you with our services.

ACCESS AND CORRECTION

Your Personal Information is generally held in your client file. Personal Information may also be held in a computer database.

We will at all times seek to ensure that the Personal Information collected and held by us is protected from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

At all times your Personal Information is treated as confidential and any sensitive information is treated as highly confidential. All paper files are stored in lockable cabinets which are locked out of hours. All record movements off premises are recorded in a central register.

Access to our premises is controlled by allowing only personnel with security passes to access the premises. All computer based information is protected through the use of access passwords on each computer and screen saver passwords. Data is backed up each evening and stored securely off site.

In the event you cease to be a client of this organisation, any personal information which we hold about you will be maintained in a secure off site storage facility for a period of 7 years in order to comply with legislative and professional requirements, following which time the information will be destroyed.

You may at any time, by contacting us by any of the methods detailed below, request access to your personal information and we will (subject to the following exceptions) provide you with access to that information either by providing you with copies of the information requested, allowing you to inspect the information requested or providing you with an accurate summary of the information held. We will, prior to providing access in accordance with this policy, require you to provide evidence of your identity.

We will not provide you access to personal information which would reveal any confidential formulae or the detail of any in house evaluative decision making process, but may instead provide you with the result of the formulae or process or an explanation of that result.

We will not provide you with access to your Personal Information if:

  • providing access would pose a serious threat to the life or health of a person;
  • providing access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others;
  • the request for access is frivolous or vexatious;
  • the information related to existing or anticipated legal proceedings between us and would not be discoverable in those proceedings;
  • providing access would reveal our intentions in relation to negotiations with you in such a way as to prejudice those negotiations;
  • providing access would be unlawful;
  • denying access is required or authorised by or under law;
  • providing access would be likely to prejudice certain operations by or on behalf of an enforcement body or an enforcement body requests that access not be provided on the grounds of national security.

In the event we refuse you access to your Personal Information, we will provide you with an explanation for that refusal.

We will endeavour to ensure that, at all times, the Personal Information about you which we hold is up to date and accurate. In the event that you become aware, or believe, that any Personal Information which we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or outdated, you may contact us by any of the methods detailed below and provide to us evidence of the inaccuracy or incompleteness or outdatedness and we will, if we agree that the information requires correcting, take all reasonable steps to correct the information.

If we do not agree that your Personal Information requires correcting, we must, if you request, take reasonable steps to ensure that whenever your Personal Information is accessed or handled in the future, it is apparent that you are not satisfied as to the accuracy or completeness of that information.

We will endeavour to respond to any request for access within 14-30 days depending on the complexity of the information and/or the request. If your request is urgent please indicate this clearly.

SECURITY

We will protect personal information from misuse and loss, and destroy or permanently de-identify personal information we no longer need.

We have practises and procedures in place to safeguard your privacy. Your personal information is stored on highly secure cloud services sometimes accessed from overseas based companies. In this case, strict password access is provided. The people who handle your personal information for us have the training, knowledge, skills and commitment to protect it from unauthorised access or misuse.

COOKIES

When you visit our website, details may be recorded about your visit, such as time and date, your server address, pages accessed, time spent and type of browser. This information is used in an anonymous form for statistical purposes and as such cannot identify you individually.

We may use cookies to identify your browser so that next time you visit our website we remember your log in details. A cookie is a small file that remains on your computer and contains information enabling our website to recognise your browser. If you do not wish to use cookies, you can adjust the settings on your browser to reject cookies or notify you when they are being used.

IDENTIFIERS

We will not adopt as our own any identifiers that you may provide to us such as TFNs, Medicare numbers etc.

SENDING DATA OVERSEAS AND THIRD PARTY WEBSITE

We will not send any personal information about you overseas unless you consent to this, or we reasonably believe that the other country has privacy laws substantially similar to our own, or we provide the information in other circumstances giving like protection.

If on the other hand you reside overseas, then you acknowledge and consent to your Personal Information being transferred to and retained in Australia for the purposes set out in this privacy policy.

Our website may contain a number of links to other third party websites. When this occurs be sure to check the privacy policy of those websites as we are not responsible for privacy practices of those other parties.

COMPLAINTS RESOLUTIONS

We are committed to providing members, and other parties whose Personal Information we hold, a fair and responsible system for the handling of their complaints.

If you wish to complain about any breach or potential breach of this privacy policy or the APPs, you should contact us by any of the methods detailed below and request that your complaint be directed to the Privacy Officer. Your complaint will be considered within 7 days and responded to. It is our intention to use our best endeavours to resolve any complaint to your satisfaction; however, if you are unhappy with our response, you are entitled to contact the Australian Privacy Commissioner (see https://www.oaic.gov.au/ or call 1300 363 992) who may investigate your complaint further.

CONTACT US

If you seek any further information from WLM about this Statement or our privacy policy generally please contact our Head of Risk, Amanda Rogers, at one of the reference points below:

Office:Level 20, 56 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000
Postal:GPO Box 5025, Sydney, NSW, 2001
Telephone:(02) 9221 7777
Facsimile:(02) 9221 7900
Email:info@wlm.com.au

This policy will be reviewed from time to time to take account of new laws and/or changes to our operations. Any information we hold about you will be governed by our most current policy. We recommend that you periodically review this policy for any changes.

ADDITIONAL PRIVACY INFORMATION

Further information on privacy in Australia may be obtained by visiting the web site of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at http://www.oaic.gov.au.