Privacy Policy

Introduction

Research Ink Pty Ltd ABN 17 937 737 857 (Research Ink) respects and upholds your rights under the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act”). Research Ink also adheres to the Privacy (Market and Social Research) Code 2014 (“Code”). For more information about the Privacy Act, the Australian Privacy Principles and the Code click on the relevant link below.

• The Market and Social Research Privacy Code – 2014 http://www.amsro.com.au/amsroresp/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/The-Privacy-Market-and-Social-Research-Code-2014.pdf
• Australian Privacy Principles http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-resources/privacy-guides/australian-privacy-principles-and-national-privacy-principles-comparison-guide
• Privacy Act http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-act/the-privacy-act

This Privacy Policy for Research Ink lets you know what personal information of yours we hold, what we do with it, who we will disclose it to and how you can access the personal information we hold about you. You can also find out here how to change inaccurate personal information and how to opt out of receiving communications from us.

What personal information about you does Research Ink collect and hold?

The information Research Ink collects includes your behaviours, needs, attitudes and opinions, as well as information about your profile (for example, your gender, year of birth, state or residence or household structure). When providing personal information you have the option of remaining anonymous or using a pseudonym to be identified by. However, in certain circumstances, such as where we receive your contact details from a third party or where the research data itself may potentially allow for identification, this may well not be practicable.

Depending on the nature of the research we conduct, we may also collect sensitive information from you, including your political opinions, employment status and household income level. Sensitive information will only be collected with your prior consent and only if it is directly related to, or reasonably necessary for, the research we conduct.

How does Research Ink collect and hold your personal information?

Research Ink will generally collect your personal information directly from you in the course of you participating in our research and/or surveys. However, we may also from time to time collect personal information about you from third parties, when provided to us by a client or organisations that specialise in providing contact lists for example from the White Pages. If so, our policy is to receive and use only personal information that is publicly available or that you would have consented to be used for research purposes. Such consent would have been given to our client who would have provided us the contact lists.

What are the purposes for which Research Ink uses, handles and discloses your personal information?

We will only use and disclose your personal information for the purpose of conducting our research and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. We will not use or disclose your personally identifiable information for the purpose of advertising, promotions or direct marketing activities. If you declined to participate in our research, we may use your personal information to re-contact you for a research purpose if we have valid reasons to believe a genuine research concern warrants such re-contact. If you have participated in our research, will only re-contact you if you were informed of this or we have valid reasons to believe a genuine research concern warrants such re-contact.

Who will Research Ink disclose your personal information to?

Research Ink we will not disclose any personally identifiable research information we collect from you unless we have your expressed prior consent and will only report the information you provide in an aggregate form that will not personally identify you. We will not disclose any personal information or personally identifiable research information to a third party for a purpose other than conducting our research unless we have your express prior consent or are required to do so by an Australian law or court/tribunal order.

In the course of conducting our research we may rely on third party service providers to host or store the data we collect who are located overseas. In most cases, this survey data and research information will not be personally identifiable. We will also take reasonable steps to ensure any service providers (and their employees and contractors) comply with the Privacy Act and this Privacy Policy and/or are subject to similar privacy laws and you have the ability to enforce those rights.

Openness

You have the right to request access to any personal information we hold about you. You can request this information by contacting the Privacy Officer at the details listed below. Where we hold information that you are entitled to access, we will respond to your request in a reasonable time and endeavour to provide you with a suitable range of choices as to how access is provided (e.g. emailing or mailing it to you). A fee may be charged to cover the cost of retrieval. However this fee will not be excessive and will only apply to the facilitation of your request.

If at any time you believe that personal information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you may request amendment of it and we will either amend the information or make a record of your comment, as we think appropriate.

Questions and complaints

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or believe that we have at any time failed to keep one of our commitments to you to handle your personal information in the manner required by the Privacy Act, the APPs or the Code, then we ask that you contact us immediately using the following contact details:

Virginia Shedden
vshedden@researchink.com.au
+61 4 22 132 223

We will respond and advise whether we agree with your complaint or not. If we do not agree, we will provide reasons. If we do agree, we will advise what (if any) action we consider it appropriate to take in response. If you are still not satisfied after having contacted us and given us a reasonable time to respond, then we suggest that you contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by:

Phone: 1300 363 992 (local call cost, but calls from mobile and pay phones may incur higher charges). If calling from overseas (including Norfolk Island): +61 2 9284 9749

TTY: 1800 620 241 (this number is dedicated to the hearing impaired only, no voice calls)

TIS: Translating and Interpreting Service: 131 450 (If you don’t speak English or English is your second language and you need assistance, ask for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner)

Post: GPO Box 2999 Canberra ACT 2601

Fax: +61 2 9284 9666

Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au

Research Ink Website

When visiting Research Ink’s website, the site server makes a record of the visit and logs the following information for statistical and administrative purposes:

• The user’s server address – to consider the users who use the site regularly and tailor the site to their interests and requirements;
• The date and time of the visit to the site – this is important for identifying the website’s busy times and ensuring maintenance on the site is conducted outside these periods;
• Pages accessed and documents downloaded – this indicates to Research Ink which pages or documents are most important to users and also helps identify important information that may be difficult to find;
• Duration of the visit – this indicates to us how interesting and informative the Research Ink site is;
• The type of browser used – this is important for browser specific coding; and
• In order to optimise the Research Ink website and better understand its usage, we collect the visiting domain name or IP address, Computer Operating System, Browser Type and Screen Resolution.

A cookie is a piece of information that an Internet web site sends to your browser when you access information at that site. Cookies are either stored in memory (session cookies) or placed on your hard disk (persistent cookies). The Research Ink website does not use persistent cookies. Upon closing your browser the session cookie set by this web site is destroyed and no Personal Information is maintained which might identify you should you visit our web site at a later date.

Retention and destruction of Personal Information

Research Ink will destroy or de-identify your personal information as soon as practicable once it is longer needed for the purpose for our research purposes. However, we may in certain circumstances be required by law to retain your personal information after our research has been completed. In this case your personal information will continue to be protected in accordance with this Policy. If we destroy personal information we will do so by taking reasonable steps and using up-to-date techniques and processes.

Security of Information

Research Ink will take reasonable steps to protect your personally identifiable information as you transmit your information from your computer to our website and to protect such information from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, use, modification, disclosure, alteration, or destruction.

However, you should keep in mind that the transmission of information over the Internet is not completely secure or error-free. In particular, e-mail sent to or from this website may not be secure, and you should therefore take special care in deciding what information you send to us via e-mail.

Miscellaneous

In this policy “personal information” has the same meaning as under the Privacy Act. This policy is effective from 12 March 2014. We may change this policy from time to time. Although we intend to observe this Privacy Policy at all times, it is not legally binding on Research Ink in any way. From time to time we may regard it as necessary or desirable to act outside the policy. Research Ink may do so, subject only to any other applicable contractual rights you have and any statutory rights you have under the Privacy Act or other applicable legislation.