Privacy Policy

How we handle your personal information

1. Your privacy is important to us

How we collect, use, exchange and protect your information is important to you. That’s why protecting your information and being clear about what we do with it is a vital part of our relationship with you.

This Privacy Policy is for our customers. It also includes our policy on the handling of credit reports and other credit related information.

Please note that during the course of our relationship with you, we may tell you more about how we handle your information.

2. About Macquarie Collections

Macquarie Collections provides debt collection and credit document advice services to our customers. We are bound by the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principals (APPs), upon which this policy is based.

3. Information we collect

Information we collect from you
We collect information about you and your interactions with us, for example when you request that our products or services.

The information we collect from you may include your identity and contact details and financial information.

Information we collect from others

We collect information about you from others, such as other credit providers and credit reporting bodies.

Sensitive information

The Privacy Act also protects your sensitive information. If we need to obtain this type of information, we will ask for your consent, except where otherwise permitted by law.

4. How do we use your information?

We collect, use and exchange your information so that we can:

assess how we collect your debts;
assess whether to provide or continue to provide goods, services or credit to you
for our internal management purposes, that are directly related to the provision or management of consumer, commercial or other credit, to assess the provision of credit;
for the purpose of collecting payments that are overdue in relation to consumer or commercial credit provided by us to the you; or
direct marketing.

We may also collect, use and exchange your information in other ways where permitted by law.

Direct Marketing

If you don’t want to receive direct marketing, you can tell us by using any of the methods set out in section 10.

5. Who do we exchange your information with?

We exchange your information with our lawyers and other service providers to us, so that we may adopt an integrated approach to our customers. We may use this information for any of the purposes mentioned in section 4.

Third parties

We may exchange your information with third parties where this is permitted by law or for any of the purposes mentioned in section 4.

Third parties include:

government and law enforcement agencies or regulators;
credit reporting bodies and credit providers; or
entities established to help identify illegal activities and prevent fraud.

Sending information overseas

We currently store our information using the Microsoft Azure Cloud.

6. Credit checks and credit reporting

When you apply to us for credit or propose to be a guarantor, we need to know if you are able to meet repayments under your agreement with us. We also want to avoid giving you further credit if this would put you in financial difficulty. One of our checks sometimes involves obtaining a credit report about you.

Credit reports

A credit report contains information about your credit history which helps credit providers assess your credit applications, verify your identity and manage accounts you hold with them. Credit reporting bodies collect and exchange this information with credit providers like us and other service providers such as phone companies.

The Privacy Act limits the information that credit providers can disclose about you to credit reporting bodies, as well as the ways in which credit providers can use credit reports.

What information can we exchange with credit reporting bodies?

The information we can exchange includes your identification details, what type of credit you have, how much is your credit limit, whether or not you’ve met your loan payment or credit obligations and if you have committed a serious credit infringement (such as fraud). We also ask the credit reporting body to provide us with an overall assessment score of your creditworthiness.

What we do with credit-related information?

We use information from credit-reporting bodies to confirm your identity, assess applications for credit, manage our relationship with you and collect overdue payments. We may also use this information as part of arriving at our own internal assessment of your creditworthiness.

We store credit-related information with your other information. You can access credit-related information we hold about you, request us to correct the information and make a complaint to us about your credit-related information. See sections 8 and 9.

Other rights you have

Credit providers may ask credit reporting bodies to use their credit-related information to pre-screen you for direct marketing. You can ask a credit reporting bodies not to do this. Also, if you’ve been, or have reason to believe that you’re likely to become, a victim of fraud (including identity fraud), you can ask the credit reporting body not to use or disclose the credit-related information it holds about you.

7. Keeping your information secure

We keep your hard-copy or electronic records on our premises and systems or offsite using trusted third parties. Our security safeguards include:

Security Safeguard	Details
Staff education	We train and remind our staff of their obligations with regard to your information.
Taking precautions with overseas transfers and third parties	When we send information to third parties that handle or store data, we ensure that appropriate data handling and security arrangements are in place
System security	All computers are password protected, there is a firewall to protect our network, any access from an external location into the network is via a VPN client that is installed on all company devices. This creates a secure tunnel in which a person can access secure company date from an external source.
Building security	We have protection in our buildings against unauthorised access such as alarms and secure locks.
Destroying data when no longer required	Where practical, we keep information only for as long as required (for example, to meet legal requirements or our internal needs)

8. Accessing, updating and correcting your information

You can ask for access to your basic information (for example what transactions you’ve made) by going online or calling us. To obtain a copy of current credit-related information we hold about you, you can visit our office or call us.

For more substantial information, such as details of what is recorded in your credit file, please complete and sign the Request for Access to Personal Information form included at the end of this Policy. Send it to us using the contact details in section 10.

There is no fee for making the initial request, but in some cases, there may be an access charge to cover the time we spend locating, compiling and explaining the information you ask for. If there is an access charge, we’ll give you an estimate up front and confirm that you’d like us to proceed. Generally, the access charge is based on an hourly rate plus any photocopying costs or other out-of-pocket expenses. You’ll need to make the payment before we start, unless you’ve authorised us to debit your account.

We try to make your information available within 30 days of your request. Before we give you the information, we’ll need to confirm your identity.

In certain circumstances, we’re allowed to deny your request or limit the access we provide. For example, we might not provide you access to commercially sensitive information. Whatever the outcome, we’ll write to you explaining our decision.

It is important that we have your correct details, such as your current address and telephone number. You can check or update your information at any branch, or by phoning us. Please see section 10.

You can ask us to correct any inaccurate information we hold or have provided to others (including credit-related information) by contacting us using the details in section 10. If the information that is corrected is information we have provided to others, you can ask us to notify them of the correction. We don’t charge a fee for these requests.

If your request relates to credit-related information provided by others, we may need to consult with credit reporting bodies or other credit providers. We’ll try to correct information within 30 days. If we can’t complete the request within 30 days, we’ll let you know the reason for the delay and try to agree to a timeframe with you to extend the period.

If we’re able to correct your information, we’ll inform you when the process is complete.

If we disagree with you that information should be corrected, we’ll let you know in writing our reasons. You can ask us to include a statement with the relevant information, indicating your view that the information is inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, irrelevant or out-of-date. We will take reasonable steps to comply with such a request.

9. Making a privacy complaint

We accept that sometimes we can get things wrong. If you have a concern about your privacy (including credit-related matters), you have a right to make a complaint and we’ll do everything we can to put matters right.

To lodge a complaint, please get in touch with us using your point of contact or one of the customer service teams set out in section 10. We’ll review your situation and try to resolve it straight away. If you’ve raised the matter through your point of contact or our customer service teams and it hasn’t been resolved to your satisfaction, please contact our Customer Relations team using the details in section 10.

We acknowledge every complaint we receive and provide our name, a reference number and contact details of the investigation office. We keep you updated on the progress we’re making towards fixing the problem.

Usually, it takes only a few days to resolve a complaint. However, if we’re unable to provide a final response within 45 days, we’ll contact you to explain why and discuss a timeframe to resolve the complaint.

If your complaint is about our practices relating to credit-related information, then we may need to consult with other organisations, including credit reporting bodies or credit providers.

We will acknowledge receipt of the complaint within seven days. If we can’t resolve the matter within 30 days, we’ll contact you and explain the reason for the delay, the expected timeframe to resolve the complaint and seek your agreement to extend the period.

If you’re not satisfied with our handling of your matter, you can refer your complaint to external dispute resolution. We suggest you do this only once you’ve first followed our internal complaint processes set out above.

If your complaint is about the way we handle your personal information, you may also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by calling them at 1300 363 992, online at www.oaic.gov.au or writing to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001.

10. How to contact us or find out more

Our Website macquariecollections.com.au

For the attention of the Compliance Officer:
PO Box 325
Penrith NSW 2751

Telephone: 02 4732 2100