Energy Consumers Australia (ABN: 96 603 931 326) (ECA, we, us, our) is committed to protecting your privacy. We are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), which sets out the Australia Privacy Principles (APPs) concerning personal information of individuals.

We have established this Privacy Policy to explain to you how we collect, handle, use and disclose your personal information. We use your information fairly, lawfully and transparently and for the purpose for which it was collected adopting appropriate safeguards to keep it secure.

Personal information is any information about you, from which you can be identified.

ECA only collects information about you when it is related to our functions, and it is reasonably necessary for us to have the information about you. For instance, when you apply to receive our newsletters and information about our events and advocacy activities. We also collect information when you apply for grants and jobs or offer information about your consumer experiences.

ECA does not intentionally collect any personally identifiable financial, health-related or other sensitive information. We also do not collect information from children under the age of 13. If you provide us with unsolicited sensitive information, we will either destroy the information or treat it as personal information and handle it in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We may collect general information about you when you use our website. This might include your IP address, the browser and operating system you are using, and related information. We may also use cookies (small data files which are placed on your computer) which allows our website to ‘remember you’ when you return to our site and to improve your browsing experience. This information is aggregated and anonymous, and will not be used to personally identify you.

From time to time we may collect personal information about you indirectly through publicly available sources such as social media platforms, for example Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. In this situation, we will use the information to contact you or otherwise de-identify the information for research and reporting purposes. We will not disclose identifiable information without your express consent.

ECA may use your personal information for the its advocacy, research, information, and administrative purposes and to provide you with information about our activities.

These uses include:

Understanding and formulating policy and advocacy strategies;

Undertaking, administering and supporting our core activities (including advocacy and education on key energy issues) and other activities relevant to ECA’s functions;

Assessing grant applications, granting, monitoring and managing research projects and funding;

Contacting and engaging with you on key energy issues and other matters relevant to ECA’s functions;

Providing you with marketing services, including information relevant to key energy issues, research or other ECA initiatives;

Conducting general research about your concerns and attitudes in relation to key energy issues; and

Maintaining our records and to comply with our legal obligations.

We will not disclose personal information you give us to persons or entities without your consent, with some limited exceptions such as our service providers.

We use a range of third party service providers to help us undertake, administer and support our activities and functions, including mailing, events, surveys, IT, web hosting, data storage, back-up and data analysis services, recording and filming services, and digital marketing and social media services and platforms.

Our service providers include Microsoft Office 365, Box, Insightly, Mail Chimp, Entegy, Jobadder, Essential Media Communications, and Smarty Grants.

Some of our third-party service providers and their servers may be located overseas in various countries (including USA and Singapore).

Where we disclose personal information to third-party service providers, we seek contractual undertakings that they  have appropriate controls to protect your personal information. They can only use your personal information for authorised purposes.

We may be required by law to disclose certain information from time to time.

By providing us with your personal information, you consent to us using and disclosing it for the purposes described above, and in accordance with our privacy policy.

You do not have to give us all of the information we ask you to provide. However, if you do not provide us with some or all of the personal information required, you may not receive valuable information about us, our research and reports, and national energy market matters; you may not be able to attend and participate in our events and may not be able to apply for and receive grants and research funding.

We will provide you with the option to engage with us anonymously or through a pseudonym if it is feasible to do so.

If you no longer wish to receive information from us about our activities, events, research or other relevant information, you can always opt out. If you are receiving email communications from us, there will be a mechanism to opt out contained in each email. To stop receiving any other communications from us, you can contact us.

Information ECA collects is handled securely and with proper regard for privacy.

Your information may be stored both electronically and in hard copy. Electronic data is stored on secure databases operated by third party service providers and some hard copy files are held at our secured offices.

ECA takes the security of your personal information very seriously, and we implement a range of measure to protect your information from loss, misuse, interference and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.

Any third-party service providers of ECA who have access to personal information are required to protect this information in a manner that is consistent with our privacy policy, including in relation to security and confidentiality. They must not use any information for any other purpose than to provide the designated services to ECA.

ECA may make amendments to this Privacy Policy at any time. We will post any revised Privacy Policy provisions on our website and give you notice as to when the changes will take effect.

ECA will give you reasonable notice in writing on our website of any changes to the Privacy Policy that are material to how we collect, handle, use and disclose your personal information.

Once the notice period passes, you will be taken to have accepted any changes by continuing to engage or communicate with us.

You have a right to access and update the personal information that we hold about you.

It is important to us that the information we hold about you is up-to-date, accurate and complete, and we will try to confirm your details through our communications with you. If any of your details change, please notify us as soon as you can. If you believe we are holding information about you that is inaccurate, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, you can ask us to correct it, or delete it altogether.

If you would like to access your personal information, or request us to update, correct or delete it, you can do so by contacting us in writing and verifying your identity. We will do our best to respond to your request within 30 days.

We will only refuse access in exceptional circumstances, and if this is the case, we will advise you of our reasons for doing so.

If you require a hard copy of your personal information we may charge an administration fee.

If you have a complaint about how your personal information is being handled or you believe that ECA has breached the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) or APPs, you can contact us through our Privacy Officer, details below.

We take your complaints seriously. We will attempt to resolve your issue quickly and fairly. If we cannot resolve your complaint to a satisfactory standard, you are entitled to lodge your complaint in the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

ECA welcomes your comments regarding this Privacy Policy.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy and would like further information, please contact our Privacy Officer by any of the following means:

Email:    privacy@energyconsumeraustralia.com.au

Phone:   02 9220 5500 (during business hours Monday to Friday)