How we manage your personal information

We usually collect personal information directly from you in the course of our dealings with you, unless this is unreasonable or impracticable – for example, when you apply for employment with us, use our websites, or social media channels, or when you contact us (including in writing, electronically or by telephone). Our website may use cookies to collect information about your use of the website (such as, date and time of visits, IP addresses) and to track advertising campaign data for advertising purposes.

We use only lawful and fair means to collect your personal information and take reasonable steps to provide specific Privacy Notices at the time we collect your personal information, but sometimes we may need to provide it to you afterwards. We may provide the relevant Privacy Notice to you verbally, in a confirmation email to you, on the relevant form, in the terms that apply to your service or product, or by referring you to our website.

We may sometimes collect personal information about you from another entity of the Group, from publicly available sources of information, or from third parties, including government departments and third party service providers that provide services to us in connection with our business.

Types of information collected

The types of personal information we may collect about you include (but are not limited to):

• identity information, such as your name, current and previous addresses, telephone numbers, email address and date of birth;
• billing and credit information, such as your credit history, or credit rating from a credit reporting body;
• information about your dealings with us, how you use our products and services, and technical information about our products and services;
• details of your meter, for example, location, type and consumption data;
• property access information for the supply of our services – for example, to supply electricity, we may need information about any dogs on the premises;
• information about you as a prospective job applicant – for example, qualifications; and
• other information we consider necessary to provide our products or services to you.

Sensitive information

We will only collect ‘sensitive information’ from you with your consent and where we reasonably need to do so to provide you with products or services or carry out our activities (e.g. for the purposes of helping customers on life support). Sensitive information is personal information that includes information about things like your health, genetic or other confidential information (such as a person’s criminal record, personal preferences or beliefs).

Why we collect personal information

The primary purpose for which we collect your personal information is to provide you with our products and services and carry out one or more of our business functions or activities. This may include collecting, using and disclosing your information to:

• provide you information about products and services;
• consider your request to provide you with products and services, including your eligibility – for example, for financial assistance payments;
• verify your identity (identifiers may be checked online with relevant issuing government departments or through our third parties such as credit reporting bodies or information service providers);
• check your previous payment history with us and undertake a credit check;
• consider your application/request to provide you with credit;
• improve and develop existing and new products and services (for example, by conducting customer and market research, modelling and planning activities);
• administer the products and services we provide you – for example, address any query, feedback or complaint that you may raise with us or your electricity retailer (if we are not your retailer);
• communicate to you about your account with us, including to issue bills and seek payment;
• recover debt (this may include disclosure of any overdue accounts to external debt collection agencies and listing with credit reporting bodies);
• maintain our records and internal reports;
• if you are applying for employment with us, to assess your suitability;
• maintain our relationship with you;
• conduct marketing, promotions, competitions and surveys, and for community engagement matters;
• comply with our legal obligations, including under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld);
• assist in the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim;
• ensure safety and compliance at our sites and for life support and safety purposes;
• supply you with electricity, including connections, disconnections, life support and other service requests or changes from you or your electricity retailer (if we are not your retailer);
• respond to any safety or emergency issues such as power lines down;
• attend to network related requirements (for example, maintenance, vegetation management, street lighting, meter readings and any other request you may have made to us or your electricity retailer (if we are not your retailer));
• notify your electricity retailer (if we are not your retailer) of issues concerning your electricity service;
• recover costs for damage to network assets.

Authorised representatives

We may also need you to provide personal information about other individuals (e.g. about your authorised representatives). If you do, it is your responsibility to inform these individuals that their personal information has been supplied to us and advise them about this Privacy Statement.

Information use and disclosure

We may also use and/or disclose your personal information:

• for other purposes which you consent to;
• for secondary purposes related to the primary purpose, where you would reasonably expect us to use or disclose your personal information for that secondary purpose; or
• which are required by or authorised to do so by law.

We may use your information (other than sensitive information) to contact you about new offers, products and services. We may only use your sensitive information for this purpose if you consent. You have a choice to opt-out of receiving direct marketing materials. If you do not wish to receive this information, please contact us.

We may disclose your personal information (including, in certain limited circumstances, your sensitive information) to third parties, including to:

• share your personal information amongst other Group entities or other organisations with whom the Group has affiliations;
• share your personal information with our contractors, agents, and external advisers, such as lawyers, auditors, accountants and financiers;
• other energy retailers;
• financial institutions (for processing payment);
• third party service providers we use in conducting our business, such as mailing operations, billing and debt recovery functions and information technology services;
• credit-reporting bodies and agencies for identity checking and credit related purposes such as credit-worthiness, credit rating and default listing;
• law enforcement or government agencies, as required or authorised by law (for example, to the Australian Tax Office), and for administering concession entitlements, disaster response or relief services and emergency services.

We may sometimes disclose your personal information to third parties overseas. If we use a cloud-based service to store and process personal information, such a service may use a server hosted overseas to store data including your personal information.

We take reasonable steps to ensure these organisations comply with confidentiality and privacy obligations concerning the protection of personal information.

Third-party websites

We may provide links to other websites operated by third parties. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party website. If you visit a linked website, the use of a third party website will be governed by their own terms of use (including privacy policies).

Credit reporting

We collect your credit-related information to allow us to decide whether to provide you with any of our products and services on credit.

Sometimes we may receive credit eligibility information about you from credit reporting bodies. This information is used to enable us to assess your credit worthiness. The information we may provide to or receive from credit reporting bodies includes:

• identity information, such as your name, account number, last known premises or postal or email address, contact details, date of birth, driver licence number, passport number or Medicare number;
• statement of account information, such as receipt of payment, default status, outstanding debt at the time of referral, amounts that are overdue and for which debt collection action has started;
• advice that payments are no longer overdue;
• if relevant, information about serious credit infringements, such as fraud or intention not to comply with credit obligations;
• billing information, such as premises last read (date of final read), due date of bill, billing period of bills, type of bills request (e.g. moving in customer request, premises disconnection request).

The credit reporting bodies may also disclose your credit information as permitted by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), including to other credit providers for a consumer credit related purpose. The credit reporting bodies have their own policies on the management of credit information.

We may use or disclose such information for purposes such as:

• processing applications to provide products or services to you on credit;
• managing our credit relationship with you, including assisting you with debt repayments and dealing with your queries and complaints relating to credit or credit reporting;
• using your credit-related personal information to collect any money owing to us;
• referring any overdue accounts to other third parties that provide credit-related services to us, such as external debt collection agencies;
• providing your credit-related personal information when required or authorised by law.

How personal information can be accessed and corrected

We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information that we collect and hold is accurate, complete, relevant, not misleading, timely and secure. We recommend that you promptly advise us:

• if there is any change to any of the details you have given us; or
• if it comes to your attention that we hold information about you that is not correct, accurate, complete, up-to-date or relevant,

so that we can continue to provide the products and services you require.

We will allow access to or use all reasonable efforts to correct the information that we hold about you unless we consider that the law permits or requires us to withhold the information or not make the correction. We will do this within a reasonable time. We may first require proof of your identity. If we cannot provide you with access to your personal information, or cannot correct it if requested, we will let you know of our reasons for refusal.

You can contact us at our contact page on our website for more information about how to access, correct or update any personal information we may hold about you.

How we protect personal information

We use a range of security mechanisms and procedures to protect your personal information and will take all reasonable measures to ensure that your personal information is stored securely both in electronic and physical forms. However, to the extent permitted by law, we exclude all liability (including in negligence) for the consequences of any unauthorised access to your personal information. If you become aware of a security breach, please notify us immediately.

We also take reasonable steps to securely destroy or de-identify personal information where we no longer need it for the purpose for which we collected it and where it is not required by or under an Australian law, or court/tribunal order to retain that information.

Complaints

You can make a privacy related complaint by contacting us at our contact page on our website. If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint, you may refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) by calling 1300 363 992 or by visiting the website at www.oaic.gov.au.

Changes to this Privacy Statement

This Privacy Statement may change from time to time. Please visit our website for the most current version. By continuing to use our websites, or otherwise providing further information to us, you accept this Privacy Statement as it applies from time to time.