Privacy Policy
Stonnington Website Privacy Statement
The City of Stonnington (Council) is committed to fulfilling its obligations under the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) (Act) to protect your privacy when using this website and when you provide Council with your personal information. While handling your personal information, Council will comply with the Information Privacy Principles contained in the Act.
This Privacy Statement sets out how we generally collect and manage Personal Information about you online, and the steps we take to protect it. Personal Information is defined under the Act as information or an opinion (including information or an opinion forming part of a database), that is recorded in any form and whether true or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion, but does not include information of a kind to which the Health Records Act 2001 applies.
Please read this Privacy Statement carefully as you navigate this website. By using this website or any e-services made available on this website, you acknowledge that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by this Privacy Statement and that you consent to the collection and use by Council of your personal information according to the terms below.
Council’s e-services include any Council services offered electronically, including the T1 online application and payments portal.
For information about the broader collection and use of personal information by Council, please refer to our Privacy and Data Protection Policy.
How and why we collect information about you online
In the course of providing services to the community, we collect personal information in a variety of ways. For example we collect your personal information when you:
- Make a payment to us;
- Complete a form regarding one of our functions (for example: planning, valuation or rates);
Enquire about the services we provide (including education, welfare and other community services such as child care services); - Apply for a permit;
- Lodging a vendor application or submitting an expression of interest;
- Booking an appointment with any of our community health services, such as immunisation or any appointments with our maternal and child health offices;
- Enter a competition;
- Interact with us on social media;
- Apply for a job with us;
- Supply goods or services to us;
- Use our mobile applications; and
- Use our chat bots.
Information you provide
When using this website, you will usually provide your personal information directly to us, for a specific purpose. For example, when you make an enquiry about our services or request to be placed on a mailing list through this website, we collect your contact details so we can provide you with the information or advice you requested. When you apply for a job with us, we collect information about your qualifications and we may ask you to undertake certain tests as part of our recruitment processes.
We may also collect aggregate data that tells us about visitors to this website, but not the identity of those visitors. For example, we may collect information about the dates, times and duration of visits and which pages of this website are the most commonly visited. The purpose of collecting this aggregate data is to help us to administer and improve the website. That aggregate information does not contain any personal information and Council cannot identify you from it.
How we use and disclose the information we collect
We use and disclose personal information for the purpose for which it was collected. As most of our information is collected from you directly, you will normally be aware of the purpose of the collection and when and for what purpose your information may be used or disclosed.
The personal information we collect may be stored in Council’s systems and databases and be used to identify you when you communicate with Council and for the delivery of services and information online. In particular, the contact details that you provide to Council may be used to contact you in relation to other Council functions and services.
The types of organisations to which we usually disclose personal information include:
- Financial institutions for payment processing
- Third parties who support our information technology
- Our contracted service providers (including payment processors) and organisations that carry out activities that assist us to deliver services, including for quality control activities, call centres, mail houses, data entry, data storage, data processing and hosting. In each case, we may disclose personal information to the service provider and the service provider may in turn provide us with personal information collected from you in the course of providing the relevant products or services
- Law enforcement agencies, and other governmental agencies or third parties where authorised, permitted or required by law to do so (for example if required by a Court order or a regulatory authority)
- Persons part of any investigation into you or your activities or to protect our website, our products and our technology assets or the rights, property or personal safety or any person. For example, if we have reason to suspect that you have committed a breach of our website terms or conditions of use or another agreement with Council, or have otherwise engaged in unlawful activity (such as fraud or cyber-crime), and Council reasonably believes that disclosure is necessary to the police, any relevant authority or enforcement body, or to relevant internet service providers or network administrators
- Our professional advisers
- Anyone else to whom you authorise us to disclose your Personal Information; and
- To referees whose details are provided to us by job applicants.
Council uses cloud-based infrastructure as part of its website and online form tools, which is supplied by third party providers that may be based overseas. Accordingly, your personal information may be placed with or transferred or disclosed to service providers in jurisdictions outside of Victoria. These jurisdictions include the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
We will never sell any personal information we collect about you.
How we protect the information we collect about you
We have implemented technology and security measures to protect the personal information that we collect and we will take all reasonable steps to ensure the security of that personal information.
This involves protecting it from:
- Unauthorised access
- Improper use
- Alteration
- Unlawful or accidental destruction; and
- Accidental loss.
Technological and operational policies and procedures are in place to protect your Personal Information from misuse and loss and from unauthorised modification or disclosure.
However, you should be aware that there are risks in transmitting information across the Internet. If you are concerned about conveying sensitive information to Council over the internet, you might prefer to contact us by telephone or mail.
Your personal information is only kept while it is required for the purpose for which it was collected or for a permitted secondary purpose, unless we are required by law to retain it for a longer period.
Cookies
Like many websites, this website may use cookies, or similar automated mechanisms, to improve our understanding of website traffic, visitor behaviour and responses to promotional campaigns. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your website browser, mobile application or device (i.e. computer or smartphone), online media, and advertisements. We may use cookies and other similar technologies for a number of purposes, including to analyse site traffic and trends, and to generally understand the online behaviours and interests of people who interact with our services. These are used to supplement our server logs and other methods of traffic and response management.
No data obtained from our use of cookies or other similar technologies is shared or given to third parties. Additionally, the data obtained from our use of cookies or other similar technologies is not linked to any Personal Information you may provide and cannot be used to identify you. This data is kept for a maximum of 12 months before being deleted.
Your web browser may tell you how to be notified when you receive certain types of cookies or how to restrict or disable certain types of cookies. Please note, however, that without cookies you may not be able to use all of the features of our website. You have the right to choose whether or not to accept or enable our use of cookies and other identification technologies on your browser. You can do this by configuring your browser so that it disables cookies or does not accept them and by clearing your local cache or browsing history at any stage.
Links
This website privacy statement does not apply to other websites we may link to, such as Eventbrite and Mailchimp. We recommend that you read the Privacy Statement when you access another site.
Access and Correction
Requests for access to and correction of documents containing your personal information are generally managed under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic). For information on how to make an application for access to documents containing personal information under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic), please refer to the FOI Page on Council’s website.
Complaints
Although there is no obligation to do so, we encourage individuals to send written complaints directly to us about a breach, or perceived breach, of privacy in the first instance.
Alternatively, complaints can be directed to the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner although that complaint can be declined if you have not first submitted a complaint directly to us.
The Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner can be contacted as follows:
By post
Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner
PO Box 24274
MELBOURNE VIC 3001
By telephone
By email
Further Information
In the first instance, all enquiries concerning your personal information and privacy should be addressed to the FOI and Privacy Officer at council@stonnington.vic.gov.au
More information about our privacy obligations can be found in our Privacy and Data Protection Policy.