1. We respect your privacy

(a) ACADEMY IT respects your right to privacy and is committed to safeguarding the privacy of our customers and website visitors. We adhere to the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). This policy sets out how we collect and treat your personal information. The National Privacy Act can be viewed online at www.privacy.gov.au.

(b) “Personal information” is information we hold which is identifiable as being about you.

 

2. Collection of personal information

(a) ACADEMY IT will, from time to time, receive and store personal information you enter onto our website, provided to us directly or given to us in other forms.

(b) You may provide basic information such as your name, phone number, address and email address to enable us to send information, provide updates and process your product or service order. We may collect additional information at other times, including but not limited to, when you provide feedback, when you provide information about your personal or business affairs, change your content or email preference, respond to surveys and/or promotions, provide financial or credit card information, or communicate with our customer support.

(c) Additionally, we may also collect any other information you provide while interacting with us.

 

3. How we collect your personal information

(a) ACADEMY IT collects personal information from you in a variety of ways, including when you interact with us electronically or in person, when you access our website and when we provide our services to you. We may receive personal information from third parties. If we do, we will protect it as set out in this Privacy Policy.

 

4. Use of your personal information

(a) ACADEMY IT may use personal information collected from you to provide you with information, updates and our services. We may also make you aware of new and additional products, services and opportunities available to you. We may use your personal information to improve our products and services and better understand your needs.

(b) ACADEMY IT may contact you by a variety of measures including, but not limited to telephone, email, sms or mail.

 

5. Disclosure of your personal information

(a) We may disclose your personal information to any of our employees, officers, insurers, professional advisers, agents, suppliers or subcontractors insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this Policy. Personal information is only supplied to a third party when it is required for the delivery of our services.

(b) We may from time to time need to disclose personal information to comply with a legal requirement, such as a law, regulation, court order, subpoena, warrant, in the course of a legal proceeding or in response to a law enforcement agency request.

(c) When enrolling with Academy IT, you consent to Academy IT using your personal information, such as your email address, for direct contact purposes. This includes sending you emails about your academic progress, compliance with study requirements or offers for further courses and services.  You may opt out of receiving direct marketing communications at any time. Our electronic marketing activities will comply with the requirements of the Spam Act 2003 (Commonwealth).

(d)We may share your information with other organisations when we are required to do so. This includes but may not be limited to Department of Further Education, Employment and Training, Department of State Development (DSD), Australian Skills Qualifications Authority (ASQA), National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER).

(e) We may also use your personal information to protect the copyright, trademarks, legal rights, property or safety of ACADEMY IT, academyit.com.au, its customers or third parties.

(f) If there is a change of control in our business or a sale or transfer of business assets, we reserve the right to transfer to the extent permissible at law our user databases, together with any personal information and non-personal information contained in those databases. This information may be disclosed to a potential purchaser under an agreement to maintain confidentiality. We would seek to only disclose information in good faith and where required by any of the above circumstances.

(g) By providing us with personal information, you consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy and the types of disclosure covered by this Policy. Where we disclose your personal information to third parties, we will request that the third party follow this Policy regarding handling your personal information.

 

6. Security of your personal information

(a) ACADEMY IT is committed to ensuring that the information you provide to us is secure. In

order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure information and protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.

(b) Some of the security measures we use include:

• Firewalls and access logging tools that protect against unauthorised access to your data and our network.
• Secure work environments and workflow systems that prevent unauthorised access and copying of your personal information.
• Secure server and closed network environments.
• Virus scanning tools.
• Management of access privileges, to ensure that only those who really need it can see your personal information.
• Ongoing training and security reviews.

(c) The transmission and exchange of information is carried out at your own risk. We cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us, or receive from us. Although we take measures to safeguard against unauthorised disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that personal information that we collect will not be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.

 

7. Access to your personal information

(a) You may request details of personal information that we hold about you in accordance with the provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). A small administrative fee may be payable for the provision of information. If you would like a copy of the information, which we hold about you or believe that any information we hold on you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, please email us at support@academyit.com.au.

(b) We reserve the right to refuse to provide you with information that we hold about you, in certain circumstances set out in the Privacy Act.

(c) We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information that we collect, use and disclose is accurate, up to date and complete. Where an individual requests to correct information, we will take reasonable steps to correct the information, having regard to the purpose for which it is held. You may lodge a request to correct personal information in the manner outlined in clause 7. (a) above.

 

8. Complaints about privacy

(a) To make a complaint about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles, which includes how we handle your personal information, you can contact our CEO or write to us at the addresses provided in clause 7. (a) above. We will try to respond to your complaint within a reasonable time after it is received but not more than 10 working days.  If you are not satisfied by our response, you may access further information regarding privacy from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

 

9. Retention of Records

(a) Academy IT is required by law to retain all records applicable to a person’s learning/training for a period of 30 years.  These records are retained within the Student Records Management Data Base.  All other records will be archived for a period of 24 months after completion of the accredited course or qualification.

(b)Under various other statutes of limitations Academy IT is required to keep corporate, administrative, financial records for a minimum period of 7 years.

 

10.  Changes to Privacy Policy

(a) Please be aware that we may change this Privacy Policy in the future. We may modify this Policy at any time, in our sole discretion and all modifications will be effective immediately upon our posting of the modifications on our website or notice board. Please check back from time to time to review our Privacy Policy.

 

11.  Website

(a) When you visit our website

When you come to our website (academyit.com.au) we may collect certain information such as browser type, operating system, website visited immediately before coming to our site, etc. This information is used in an aggregated manner to analyse how people use our site, such that we can improve our service.

(b) Cookies

We may from time to time use cookies on our website. Cookies are very small files which a website uses to identify you when you come back to the site and to store details about your use of the site. Cookies are not malicious programs that access or damage your computer. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but you can choose to reject cookies by changing your browser settings.

However, this may prevent you from taking full advantage of our website. Our website may from time to time use cookies to analyses website traffic and help us provide a better website visitor experience. In addition, cookies may be used to serve relevant ads to website visitors through third party services such as Google Adwords. These ads may appear on this website or other websites you visit.

(c) Third party sites

Our site may from time to time have links to other websites not owned or controlled by us. These links are meant for your convenience only. Links to third party websites do not constitute sponsorship or endorsement or approval of these websites. Please be aware that ACADEMY IT is not responsible for the privacy practises of other such websites. We encourage our users to be aware, when they leave our website, to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personal identifiable information.

 

12.  Responsibilities

(a) CEO

It is the overall responsibility of the CEO to ensure that the Privacy Policy is accessible to all stakeholders and that all staff are appropriately trained to comply with this policy.

(b) RTO Manager

It is the responsibility of the RTO Manager to ensure that all employees and contractors:

• Are conversant with this policy;
• Receive appropriate training in Privacy issues;
• are aware of all updates in Privacy Legislation and Regulations.

(c)Employees

It is the responsibility of staff to ensure that:

• They maintain up to date knowledge of the Australian Privacy Principles and legislative requirements;
• their behaviour and practices align fully with this Privacy Policy and Privacy Act 1988 at all times;
• any breach of the policy or Act is reported immediately to the CEO.

(d) Students and Other Non-Employee Stakeholders

It is the responsibility of students and non-employee stakeholders to ensure that they do not breach privacy relating to other students, stakeholders and Academy IT.

 

13.  Consequences

(a) Both financial and incarceration penalties apply for breaches of the Privacy Act.

(b) Should a serious Privacy breach be proven Academy IT may also be deregistered as an RTO and be required to close the business.

(c) Academy IT has a zero-tolerance policy to Privacy breaches and any employee or stakeholder found to have breached Privacy faces termination of employment or contract.

 

14.  Employee Authority to Exchange Information

(a) Academy IT has agreed with its employees that it will not share information with any third party, unless required by law, without the employee’s consent through the signing of an Authority to Exchange Information.

 

15.  Student Authority to Exchange Information

(a) Academy IT will not share student information with any third party, unless required by law, without the student’s consent through the signing of an Authority to Exchange Information.