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Privacy Collection Statement

Privacy Collection Statement

Revised January 2013

Protecting your privacy

Sensis Pty Ltd (“Sensis”, “we”, “our”, “us”) is committed to providing you with the highest levels of customer service and to protecting your privacy. We are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act”), which sets out a number of principles concerning the protection of your personal information.

This Privacy Collection Statement sets out the type of information we collect, how we use it and who we share it with. It may be amended from time to time and a current version is available at this weblink.

About Sensis

Sensis is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telstra Corporation Limited ("Telstra"), and is responsible for the Yellow Pages® and White Pages® directories and associated voice, electronic, wireless and online products, as well as a range of advertising, media, content, location and other business services.  

Sensis also operates subsidiary companies. In this statement, a reference to “related companies” means Telstra and our subsidiary companies.

What personal information do we collect?

The personal information we collect and store may include your name, birth date, current and previous addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, banking and credit card details, work-related information, occupation, preferences for using our websites, driver's license details, web log, computer, device and connection information and your Sensis user name and password. We also hold details of your Sensis services, including their status, as well as certain details about your personal interests.

We understand you may not want to provide this information to us. That’s fine; however, it might mean we may not be able to provide you with the products and services you require, or a high level of service.

Sometimes we’ll need you to provide personal information about another person (for example, if you’d like to give someone access to your Sensis services). If that happens, we’ll need you to tell that person you’ve provided their personal information to us, and that we can be contacted for more information.

How do we collect personal information?

We collect personal information in a number of ways, including:

  • directly from you through our websites, via phone, via application forms or when you download and use digital applications (such as Sensis apps)
  • from other parties (such as your representatives, credit reporting agencies, social media sites, our related companies, our syndication partners)
  • publicly available sources
  • from organisations identified under "When do we disclose your personal information?"
  • from our own records of when you visit us online or where we have an online presence (such as Facebook or Twitter)
  • when we are required by law
How do we use your personal information?

Your personal information may be used to;

  • identify you
  • provide, manage and administer your services
  • provide our products and services, including directory services and advertising through a number of media
  • conduct credit checks and to help prevent fraud
  • research and improve our services
  • help us deliver better services to you
  • help us maintain and develop our business systems and infrastructure
  • promote and market services to you (sometimes even after you leave us)

If you do not want Sensis to contact you to promote and market our products, services and special offers to you, please call 1800 736 747.

We may also use your personal information to promote and market the products and services of third parties (such as other businesses, government agencies and community organisations) to you via SMS, when you call Telstra directory assistance (on 1223) or one of our other voice services (such as 1234 or Call Connect). If you do not wish to receive this marketing information, you may call the relevant service and request to be opted out (any applicable service fee will be rebated) or you can reply “No” to the SMS.

When do we disclose your personal information?

We may disclose your personal information to other organisations, but we’ll only do this in relation to us providing our services to you.

These organisations may be based locally or overseas. They may carry out functions for us such as:

  • customer enquiry services
  • mailing operations
  • billing and debt-recovery functions;  
  • information technology services
  • data verification services
  • managing your advertising
  • marketing, telemarketing and sales services
  • market research
  • website usage analysis

We take reasonable steps to ensure that these organisations are bound by confidentiality and privacy obligations to protect your personal information.

In addition, we may disclose your personal information to:

  • your authorised representatives or advisers (when requested by you to do so)
  • credit-reporting and fraud-prevention organisations
  • credit providers (for credit related purposes)
  • our related companies
  • our professional advisers
  • government, regulatory authorities and other organisations, as required by law
  • organisations who manage our business and corporate strategies, including those involved in a transfer/sale of all or part of our assets or business and those involved in managing our corporate risk and funding functions
  • our directories and syndication partners
  • other telecommunication and information service providers (eg if you obtain services from other providers, we may need to disclose your information for billing purposes)
Your personal information and our related companies

We may share your personal information with our related companies to assist them with their business development and to market their own products and services to you and may continue to do so after you cease acquiring services from us. Our related companies will use and disclose your personal information in accordance with their privacy policies. If you want to know more about our related companies, their areas of business and their commitment to privacy, please contact us (see 'How to contact us'below).

Use of location information for 1234

When you call the Sensis 1234 service, we may collect information about your present location in order to assist us in providing you with the service (eg so that we can more quickly respond to any request from you to find a business close to your present location). This may include caller ID, mobile originating line information and the location of cell towers in contact with your mobile phone device.

About our websites, applications, IP addresses and ‘cookies’

When you visit our sites our web servers record anonymous information such as the time, date and URL of the request. This information assists us to improve the structure of our websites and monitor their performance. Sometimes we also use third parties to analyse this information.

We may use 'cookies' or an equivalent on various websites and applications. A cookie is a small text file that our websites and applications use to store information on your browser or device. Usually, cookies are used so our websites and applications can remember your preferences and improve your online experience. We also use cookies for profiling purposes to tailor advertising to users’ interests. 

Sometimes cookies may collect and store personal information about you. We treat this information in the same way as any other personal information you provide. You can adjust your internet browser to disable cookies or to warn you when cookies are being used. However, if you disable cookies, you may not be able to access certain areas or experience the added features offered with the enablement of cookies.

We also collect and manage Internet Protocol (IP) addresses – the unique identifier on your computer or device. It’s used for the purpose of providing internet session management and to detect any misuse or fraudulent activities involving our websites.

Sensis may use third parties to analyse usage statistics. Such analysis is performed using data collected from our websites. The technology is not intended to collect personally identifiable information however in limited circumstances some personally identifiable information is collected, for example, an email address incorporated into a URL string. Personally identifiable information collected in this way is not used by the third party or Sensis for any purpose.

Digital advertising is included on Telstra’s and Sensis’ sites. To make this advertising more relevant to you, anonymous information about the previous web browsing activity on your computer’s or device’s internet browser on sites within Telstra’s and Sensis’ network is collected and used to associate your computer or device with one or more pre-defined interest categories.

Advertising that matches those interest categories may then be served to your computer’s or device’s internet browser. This interest-based advertising (also called online behavioural advertising) does not change the amount of advertising you receive; it just makes it more relevant. You can learn more about the interest-based advertising conducted by Telstra and Sensis here. General information about interest-based advertising is available from the industry website www.youronlinechoices.com.au, and you can also opt out of some or all interest based advertising here.  

Additional terms in relation to Sensis applications

In addition to Sensis’ obligations under the Privacy Act, and Sensis and Telstra’s own privacy statements and practices, Sensis develops its applications in accordance with the guidelines set by the relevant device manufacturer, which include guidelines relating to privacy. 

Sensis will only collect, use and disclose your personal information provided to us through your download and use of Sensis applications in the ways set out in this privacy collection statement.

Some Sensis applications may collect information about your location at a given time in order to assist us in providing you with the service offered through that application. You may choose to opt out of having Sensis collect information about your location by turning off the location services feature on your mobile device. However, please note that this may result in Sensis being unable to provide you with the service (or all parts of the service) offered through the Sensis application.

Acts in the course of journalism

Sensis commits to the Australian Press Council Privacy Standards (available at http://www.presscouncil.org.au/) in relation to material prepared by Sensis, its employees and its agents in the course of journalism. Sensis publishes some material which is licensed to it by other organisations. Sensis will take reasonable steps to ensure that each organisation which supplies it with material for publication has publicly committed to standards for the purpose of section 7B(4)(b) of the Privacy Act 1988. If Sensis receives a privacy-related complaint relating to any material supplied to it by another organisation, then it will formally request that organisation to deal with the privacy complaint in a fair and efficient manner.

Third party sites

You may click-through to third party sites from our sites, in which case we recommend that you refer to the privacy statement of the sites you visit. Sensis' collection statement and privacy policy apply to Sensis' websites only and Sensis assumes no responsibility for information and content of third party sites.

How accurate is your information?

We take all reasonable precautions to ensure that the personal information we collect, use and disclose is accurate, complete and up to date. However, the accuracy of that information largely depends on the details you give us. Please let us know if there are any errors and keep us up to date with any changes.

Want to access your personal information?

We welcome any request by you to access your personal information (subject to some exceptions allowed by law). If you would like to do so, please let us know.

For security reasons we may ask you to put your request in writing. We might also charge a fee to search and provide access to your information, but we’ll let you know about this in advance.

How to contact us

If you have any questions in relation to privacy, please contact us on 1800 736 747 between 9.00am and 5.00pm (EST), Monday to Friday. Alternatively, you can e-mail: privacy@sensis.com.au

Further information

Further information on privacy is available at the website of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.