Privacy Policy
Our Policy Statement
This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) explains how First Home Specialists Pty Ltd (ABN 36 638 597 118), our related companies and trusts (“First Home Specialists“, “we”, “our” or “us”) collect, store, use, disclose and manage your personal information.
Purpose
First Home Specialists key business activity includes property sourcing. By providing personal information to us, you consent to our collection, use, storage, disclosure and management of your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act“) and this Policy.
What personal information do we collect?
The types of personal information First Home Specialists collects about you depends on the nature of your interactions with us. In this Policy, “personal information” has the meaning given to it in the Privacy Act and includes any information or opinion, whether true or not, about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.
We may collect the following types of personal information:
- information to verify your identity including your name, date of birth, gender, address, email address and telephone number;
- financial information including bank accounts, credit card details, your income and credit-worthiness;
- details of your employment history, and other information provided as part of our recruitment process;
- your preference of our products, services, facilities and lifestyle activities;
- information about you and your family and any characteristics, preferences or requirements that are relevant to the products and services that we may provide to you;
- your device ID, device type, geo-location information, IP address, browsing information and any personal information that you may provide to us directly or indirectly via our websites, mobile applications; and
- any other personal information that may be required in order to facilitate your dealings with us.
How is personal information collected?
We will generally collect personal information:
- from you directly, when you communicate with us;
- from you indirectly, anytime you communicate or interact with us, whether this is by phone, email, face to face meeting, online or social media interaction;
- when you use our websites, applications;
- your participation in our surveys, competitions, loyalty programs or promotions;
- through our recruitment process when you apply for a position with us.
We may also collect your personal information from third parties such as:
- marketing agencies, data collection and research organisations;
- credit reporting bodies, law enforcement and government entities; and
- other individuals (for example employment references).
What happens if First Home Specialists cannot collect personal information?
You are not required to provide personal information to us. If you wish to deal with us anonymously or you decide not to provide us with the personal information described above, we may not be able to provide or tailor our products, services or information to you, either to the same standard or at all (for example certain functions of our website may not function properly if you disable cookies).
Why do we collect, store, use and disclose personal information?
We may collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for the following purposes:
- to provide and market our products and services;
- to communicate with you;
- to do business with you;
- for the general management and conduct of our business;
- to comply with our legal obligations;
- to consider the suitability of prospective employees;
- for security and risk management purposes; and
- to help us manage, develop and enhance our services, including our websites, Wi-Fi networks and applications.
We will not use or disclose your personal information for any purpose other than the purpose for which is was collected (or a related purpose) unless you have consented to that purpose or we are permitted to do so by law.
To whom does First Home Specialists disclose personal information?
We may disclose your personal information (including in some circumstances, your sensitive information) for the purposes for which it was collected or related purposes (as described above) to:
- social media channels on which we have a presence such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, generally in these cases we limit disclosure of your personal information to your first name and surname;
- regulatory authorities, police or government agencies or bodies where required by law;
- related parties, entities and trusts of First Home Specialists; and
- other companies, service providers and individuals who assist us in providing our services or managing our operations.
If the First Home Specialists entity is sold to a third party, we may transfer any personal information we hold about you to that third party. We may also disclose personal information on a confidential basis to prospective purchasers of a First Home Specialists entity.
Where we have disclosed personal information to a third party acting on our behalf, we request that those third parties do not use the personal information for their own purposes and that they comply with the Privacy Act and this Policy.
Direct marketing communications
We and/or our third party service providers may send you direct marketing communications and information about:
- products, services, discounts, competitions and special promotions that we consider may be of interest to you;
- offers or promotions based on how you use our products and services;
- third party products and services (including offers and discounts we may have negotiated for our customers) we think may interest you.
These communications may be sent in various forms, including by telephone, post, fax, email, SMS or any other form of electronic communication, in accordance with the Privacy Act and the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). By providing us your contact details you consent to First Home Specialists and/or third party service providers we engage, sending you the direct marketing messages described above.
Opting-out of other or all marketing communications
You may opt-out of any or all, direct marketing communications at any time by contacting the sender using the details set out in the communication (for example an unsubscribe link), or in the case of First Home Specialists, by contacting our Privacy Officer using the contact details below. In some situations, for example if we are providing services to you, we may still be required to make certain communications to you in connection with providing the services or products to you or as required by law.
Do we disclose personal information outside Australia?
We may disclose your personal information to the following overseas recipients:
- to related entities;
- to other companies, service providers and individuals who assist us in providing services or perform functions on our behalf such as hosting and data storage providers; and
- where we are required or authorised by law to do so.
The countries in which the recipients are likely to be located include Singapore, United States, Canada, Japan and India.
We will take reasonable steps to ensure that any overseas recipient does not use the personal information for their own purpose, and complies with the Privacy Act and this Policy.
Cookies
Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to your device to store and sometimes track information about your use of the website. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users in order to better serve you when you revisit our website.
You can set your browser to notify you when you receive cookies, providing you with the opportunity to either accept or reject it, you can also refuse all cookies by turning them off in your browser. However if you do this, certain parts of our website may not function properly.
We handle personal information collected by cookies in the same way that we handle all other personal information as described in this Policy.
Security of Information
We may hold your personal information in either electronic or hard copy form. The confidentiality and security of your information is very important to us, and we take reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference and loss, as well as unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
We use a number of physical, administrative, personnel and technical measures to protect your personal information, and regularly test our security controls, however the open nature of the internet means there is always some risk that an unauthorised party might find ways to overcome our security measures, and it is not possible to guarantee the security of your personal information. You should also be aware that e-mail communications are not usually encrypted and should not be considered secure.
Where we no longer require your personal information for business or legal reasons, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify it.
Where required by applicable law, we will notify you, and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and/or other relevant regulatory authorities, of data breaches affecting your personal information.
Third party links
Our websites and mobile applications may contain links to websites owned and operated by other organisations. When you click on one of these links, you are moving to another website. Unless stated otherwise, we are not responsible for the privacy practices of, or any content on, those linked websites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies and other terms that apply to those websites as they may differ from this Policy, and if you have any privacy concerns, we encourage you to contact those website providers directly.
Access, correction and deletion of personal information
If you wish to seek access to, correct or delete your personal information that we hold about you, please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact details set out below. Depending on the nature of your request, we may ask you to provide us further information in order to verify your identity and ask you to put in writing the information you require.
There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to, or are not able to delete, the personal information we hold, for example, if a legal exception applies or where granting access would interfere with the privacy of others or result in a breach of confidentiality, or where we are required to retain or cannot delete the information for legal or regulatory compliance reasons. If that happens, we will give you written reasons for refusal (if permitted by law to do so).
If you wish to update or delete the personal information that we may hold, please contact our Privacy Officer at info@firsthomespecialists.com.au. If we disagree that there are grounds for amending your personal information, we will inform you of the reasons and add a note to the personal information stating that you disagree with it.
We will not charge you for requesting access to, corrections or deletion of your personal information, however we may recover reasonable expenses associated with providing you with access to your personal information.
Complaints and concerns about your privacy
If you have any questions about how we handle your personal information, or if you wish to make a complaint about our information handling practices, please contact our Privacy Officer:
Email: info@firsthomespecialists.com.au
Post: Privacy Officer
First Home Specialists, Level 8, 9 Lawson Street, Southport QLD 4215
Our Privacy Officer will acknowledge receipt of your complaint and after we have completed our investigation, contact you (usually in writing) to advise the outcome, usually within 30 days, and invite a response to our findings.
If you consider that we have been unable to satisfactorily resolve your concerns about our handling of your personal information, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner:
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Phone: 1300 363 992
Post: Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2000
Please visit the OAIC website at www.oaic.gov.au for further information.
Changes to First Home Specialists’s Privacy Policy
We may update our Policy from time to time to take into account new laws and technology, changes to our operations and business practices. The most current version of this Policy is on our website at https://firsthomespecialists.com.au/privacy-policy and we encourage you to check periodically to ensure that you have the most up to date version of our current Policy.
Effective: 07 September 2022
