Privacy Policy

We are subject to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.

Who we are

Our website address is: http://makeaconnection.com.au.

Quotes

When you share your details with us, you agree to let us use them to contact you regarding your quote and acknowledge and agree to the terms outlined below in our Privacy Policy

Collection of Personal Information

Personal Information

Personal information is information or an opinion about an individual whose identity is apparent or can be reasonably ascertained. The personal information that we may collect from you when you use our products and services includes:

  • identity information (such as your name, address, date of birth);
  • contact information (such as your phone number, email address, residential and postal address); 
  • other property-related information, e.g. electricity meter identifiers; 
  • copies of identity documents (e.g. your 100 points of ID, such as driver licence, passport and Medicare card); 
  • bank details; 
  • information about your employment, education and rental history; 
  • information about your property enquiries, applications and tenancies; and
  • any other information provided to us. 

Sensitive information

Sensitive information is a type of personal information and specifically refers to information or an opinion about certain things like your racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs or affiliations, sexual orientation or practices, criminal record, and health information. 

In general, we attempt to limit the collection of sensitive information, but depending on how you use our services, we may need to collect sensitive information from you. That said, we will never collect sensitive information from you without your consent, unless we are permitted or required to do so by law.

If you do not wish us to store any sensitive information, please do not provide it to us directly, or to a third party who requests it through our services.

Comments

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Analytics & Cookies

If you leave a comment or fill in a form on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, any other information provided to us and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Our websites use cookies and third party analytics services such as Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity.

Cookies are small text files placed on your computer. We use cookies to ensure that our websites work efficiently, securely and as intended, to improve your user experience, to ensure that any ads that you may see on our websites are relevant to you and your needs, and to provide information to us (such as analytics data) on how our websites are used. We also use cookies on our websites to enable us to monitor traffic patterns, trends and to serve you more efficiently if you revisit our website. 

In most cases, a cookie does not identify you personally but may identify your internet service provider or computer. We may gather your IP address as part of our business activities and to assist with any operational difficulties or support issues with our services. In some cases, cookies may enable us to aggregate certain information with other personal information we collect and hold about you. We extend the same privacy protection to your personal information whether gathered via cookies or from other sources as detailed in this Privacy Policy.

By using our websites, you consent to the processing of data about you in the manner described, and for the purposes set out, above

You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie. This will provide you with an opportunity to either accept or reject it in each instance. However, if you disable cookies, you may not be able to access certain areas of our websites, or the website may not operate as intended for you. You can separately opt out of the use of cookies via your browser.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who we share your data with

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

We will not use or disclose your Personal Information for any purpose other than the purpose for which it was collected (or a related purpose), unless you have consented to that other purpose, or we are permitted or required to do so by law.

We may disclose your personal information:

  • To our employees, our related bodies corporate, other entities in the InspectRealEstate group and our business partners – our related bodies corporate will manage your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy.
  • To third parties in connection with our connections service – if you use or sign up to any services through our service (e.g. utilities service providers, removalists), we will disclose your personal information to facilitate that connection and service (for example to third party utility service providers and ‘connection service’ providers).
  • To our service providers and contractors – we use other service providers to help us provide our products and services to you, for example, providers of cloud hosting services, SMS services, email services, online payment systems and gateways, rental bond loans, other IT services and professional services (such as lawyers, accountants, insurers and consultants).
  • To relevant third parties (including regulators, law enforcement and concerned parties) when we are legally compelled or required to do so or when we reasonably believe that disclosure is necessary.
  • To facilitate or implement a sale or transfer of all or part of our business or assets.
  • To third parties when you request us to do so or otherwise when you have given your consent to the disclosure.
  • To third parties for benchmarking and reporting purposes – we sometimes provide third parties with benchmarking and reporting services. These services sometimes include providing analysis of property related enquiries, tenancies and purchases by users of our services. This data is mostly aggregated or anonymised.
  • As otherwise required or permitted by law.

The collection and use of your personal information by a third party may be subject to a separate privacy policy. If you submit or request any information from any third parties in connection with our services, we recommend that you read their privacy policy. We are not responsible for the way that they handle your personal information.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where your data is sent

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

When you share your details with us, you agree to let us and or our 3rd party partners to use them to contact you.

GDPR

Although we do not target any services towards clients in the European Economic Area (EEA), if you access our services from the EEA, you may have additional rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in respect of any of your personal data that we obtainIn addition to your other rights under this Privacy Policy, in certain circumstances:

  • You may be entitled to request details of the data that we hold about you and how we process it.
  • You may also have a right to:
    • have that data rectified or deleted;
    • restrict our processing of that data;
    • stop unauthorised transfers of your personal data to a third party;
    • in some circumstances, have that data transferred to another organisation; and
    • lodge a complaint in relation to our processing of your personal data with a local supervisory authority.
  • Where we rely upon your consent as our legal basis for collecting and processing your data, you may withdraw that consent at any time. If you object to the processing of your personal data, or if you have provided your consent to processing and you later choose to withdraw it, we will respect that choice in accordance with our legal obligations. However, please be aware that:
    • such objection or withdrawal of consent could mean that we are unable to provide our services to you, and could unduly prevent us from legitimately providing our services to other clients subject to appropriate confidentiality protections; and
    • even after you have chosen to withdraw your consent, we may be able to continue to keep and process your personal data to the extent required or otherwise permitted by law, in particular:
      • to pursue our legitimate interests in a way that might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and which does not materially impact on your rights, freedoms or interests; and
      • in exercising and defending our legal rights and meeting our legal and regulatory obligations.

If you believe the GDPR may apply to your personal data and you wish to exercise any of your data subject rights, please send your request in writing to our Privacy Officer at privacy@makeaconnection.com.au.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time, for example, to take into account new or amended laws, new technology or changes to the way that we operate. If we do update our Privacy Policy, we will post the updated version on our website. All personal information held by us will be handled in accordance with our most up-to-date Privacy Policy. If you use our services, we will take that as consent to our Privacy Policy.