Privacy Policy

What is your personal information?

When used in this privacy policy, the term “personal information” has the meaning given to it in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Act). In general terms, it is any information that can be used to personally identify you. This includes your name, address, telephone number, email address and profession or occupation. If the information we collect personally identifies you, or you are reasonably identifiable from it, the information will be considered personal information.

What personal information do we collect and hold?

We collect the following types of personal information:

✔ Name;

✔ Email address;

✔ Mailing or street address;

✔ Telephone number;

✔ Your dietary requirements that you provide to us;

✔ Your image (by taking photographs or videos at events);

✔ Age or birth date

✔ The organisation that you represent;

✔ Your profession, occupation or job title;

✔ Details of our events you have attended and services you have acquired from us or which you have enquired about, together with any additional information necessary to deliver those events and services and to respond to your enquiries;

✔ Any additional information relating to you that you provide to us directly through our websites or indirectly through use of our websites or online presence, through our representatives or otherwise; and

✔ Information you provide to us through our service centre, customer surveys or visits by our representatives from time to time.

Our website, or advertisements presented on our website, may include web monitoring and web tracking technologies that collect usage information about the use of our website. While the information collected in general does not, by itself, identify you or anyone else, some of the information may be matched against our other information, which may reasonably identify you and thus become personal information. Our website also uses cookies to collect usage information about the use of our website. If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set your browser so that your computer does not accept them. Please note that some services or features of our website will not function so well if cookies are disabled.

We also collect some information that is not personal information because it does not identify you or anyone else. For example, we collect anonymous answers to surveys.

How do we collect your personal information?

We collect your personal information directly from you unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so. When collecting personal information from you, we collect in ways including:

✔ Through your access and use of our website or our mobile application;

✔ When you attend or register to attend any of our events;

✔ During conversations between you and our representatives; or

✔ When you complete an application to become a member with us.

We also collect personal information from third parties including:

✔ From third parties including law enforcement agencies and other government entities; or

✔ From another person in your organisation that completes a membership application or otherwise provides your information to us.

What happens if we can’t collect your personal information?

If you do not provide us with the personal information described above, some or all of the following may happen:

✔ We may not be able to register you at our events, allow you to attend our events, provide you with services, either to the same standard or at all;

✔ We may not be able to provide you with information about events and services that you may want to hear about; or

✔ You may not be able to become a member with us.

For what purposes do we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information?

We collect personal information about you so that we can perform our activities and administer your membership.

We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for the following purposes:

✔ To organise and host events that you have registered to attend;

✔ To provide services to you and to send communications requested by you;

✔ To administer your membership with us;

✔ To provide attendees of our events (including delegates, key note speakers, event sponsors and exhibitors for our annual National Franchise Convention) a list of names, organisations and job titles of delegates attending;

✔ To answer enquiries and provide information or advice about our existing and new or services or upcoming events;

✔ To assess the performance of the website and to improve the operation of the website;

✔ To allow each of our “FCA Partners” promote and market their products and services to the franchise sector, including our members;

✔ To conduct business processing functions including providing personal information to our related bodies corporate, contractors, service providers or other third parties;

✔ For the administrative, marketing (including direct marketing), planning, product or service development, quality control and research purposes of Franchise Council of Australia, its related bodies corporate, contractors or service providers;

✔ To provide your updated personal information to our related bodies corporate, contractors or service providers;

✔ To update our records and keep your contact details up to date;

✔ To process and respond to any complaint made by you; and

✔ To comply with any law, rule, regulation, lawful and binding determination, decision or direction of a regulator, or in co-operation with any governmental authority of any country.

Your personal information will not be shared, sold, rented or disclosed other than as described in this Privacy Policy.

To whom do we disclose your information?

We disclose your personal information to:

✔ Our employees, related bodies corporate, contractors (including guest speakers of events) or service providers for the purposes of operation of our website or our activities, fulfilling requests by you, and to otherwise host events and provide services to you. Service providers can include, without limitation, event organisers, catering providers, web hosting providers, IT systems administrators, mailing houses, couriers, payment processors, data entry service providers, electronic network administrators, debt collectors, and professional advisors such as accountants, solicitors, business advisors and consultants;

✔ Each of our “FCA partners”, suppliers and other third parties with whom we have commercial relationships, for business, marketing, and related purposes, including for our “FCA partner” to direct market to our members;

✔ If you are attending our events (including the annual National Franchise Convention), to other delegates, key note speakers, event sponsors and exhibitors of that event (but this is limited to your name, organisation and job title); and

✔ Any other organisation or person for any authorised purpose with your express consent.

Direct marketing materials

We will send you direct marketing communications and information about our events and services that we consider could be of interest to you. These communications may be sent in various forms, including mail, SMS, fax and email, in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). You consent to us sending you those direct marketing communications by any of those methods. If you indicate a preference for a method of communication, we will endeavour to use that method whenever practical to do so. In addition, at any time you can opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by contacting us (see the details below) or by using opt-out facilities provided in the marketing communications and we will then ensure that your name is removed from our mailing list.

Except for our “FCA partners”, we do not provide your personal information to other organisations for the purposes of direct marketing by those organisations.

How can you access and correct your personal information?

You can request access to any personal information we hold about you at any time by contacting us (see the details below). Where we hold information that you are entitled to access, we will try to provide you with suitable means of accessing it (for example, by mailing or emailing it to you). We may charge you a fee to cover our administrative and other reasonable costs in providing the information to you. We will not charge you for simply making the request and will not charge for making any corrections to your personal information.

There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to the personal information we hold. For example, we may need to refuse access if granting access would interfere with the privacy of others or if it would result in a breach of confidentiality. If that happens, we will give you written reasons for any refusal.

If you believe that personal information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you may request us to amend it. We will consider if the information requires amendment. If we do not agree that there are grounds for amendment then we will add a note to the personal information stating that you disagree with it.

Do we disclose your personal information to anyone outside Australia?

We disclose personal information to our related bodies corporate and third party suppliers and service providers located overseas for some of the purposes listed above.

We take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipients of your personal information do not breach the privacy obligations relating to your personal information.

Security

We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is protected from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We may hold your information in either electronic or hard copy form. Personal information is destroyed or de-identified when no longer needed.

As our website is linked to the internet, and the internet is inherently insecure, we cannot provide any assurance regarding the security of transmission of information you communicate to us online. We also cannot guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the internet. Accordingly, any personal information or other information which you transmit to us online is transmitted at your own risk.

What is the process for complaining about a breach of privacy?

If you believe that your privacy has been breached, please contact our Privacy Officer using the contact information below and provide details of the incident so that we can investigate it.

We request that complaints about breaches of privacy be made in writing, so we can be sure about the details of the complaint. We will treat your requests or complaints confidentially. Our representative will contact you within a reasonable time after receipt of your complaint to discuss your concerns and outline options regarding how they may be resolved. We will aim to ensure that your complaint is resolved in timely and appropriate manner.

Contacting us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, any concerns or a complaint regarding the treatment of your privacy or a possible breach of your privacy, please use the contact link on our website or contact our Privacy Officer using the details set out below.

Please contact our Privacy Officer at:

Franchise Council of Australia
Post: Level 3, 21 Victoria Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Tel: (03) 9508 0888
Email: [email protected]

Changes to our privacy policy

We may change this privacy policy from time to time. Any updated versions of this privacy policy will be posted on our website. Please review it regularly.

This privacy policy was last updated on 22 February 2024.