Women on Boards Privacy Statement

This document was updated on 11 October 2022

Introduction

At WOB Australia Pty Ltd, we respect the privacy of your personal information and as a best practice measure we comply with the Australian Privacy Principles as implemented in the Australian Federal Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) ("Privacy Law"). The Privacy Law regulates how personal information (including sensitive information) is handled throughout its life cycle, from collection to use and disclosure, storage, accessibility and disposal.

"Personal Information" means information or an opinion whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion. Personal information includes sensitive information.

"Sensitive Information" means personal information: 

  • about an individual's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of political associations, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of professional or trade associations, membership of trade unions, sexual preferences or practices and criminal record; or 
  • that relates to an individual's health or the provision of a health service to the individual.

This privacy policy sets out how we intend to comply with the Privacy Law, when handling your personal information. 

This privacy policy covers, but is not limited to, how we handle personal information we collect using our website (www.womenonboards.net).

When you visit our website you could be directed to other sites. Those sites are beyond our control and may contain privacy provisions which differ from this privacy policy. 
 

Compliance

 

1. Collection of Personal Information

We collect personal information about a range of individuals including individuals who have created a user account for our website and individuals with a user account who provide us with their resumes using the "My Profile" function on our website. Subject to any exceptions in the Privacy Law:

  • We will not collect personal information about you unless that information is necessary for one or more of our functions. The kinds of personal information we collect and hold will depend on the level of services you request from us, including your level of use of the facilities and services available through our website. That personal information may include:
    • name and contact details (including email address) you give us when you create a user account for our website;
    • details you give us when you build an online resume using tools on our website, including details of your educational and employment background, professional memberships, boards/committees on which you serve, other relevant experience, skills, board objectives and demographic details;
    • information you provide in an online forum; and
    • information you provide in communications with us. 
  • We will collect personal information about you only by lawful and fair means and not in an unreasonably intrusive manner.
  • We will not collect sensitive information about you without your consent unless that collection is otherwise permitted by the Privacy Law. By entering sensitive information on an online form on our website (such as details of your membership of professional associations) you consent to:
    • us collecting that sensitive information;
    • us disclosing that sensitive information to parties seeking directors for board positions, including employment agencies and human resources consultants, without referring back to you; and
    • parties seeking directors for board positions, including employment agencies and human resources consultants, collecting that sensitive information. 
  • We will collect your personal information directly from you where it is reasonable and practicable to do so. 
  • When we collect personal information about you, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are aware of certain key matters, such as the purposes for which we are collecting the information, the organisations (or types of organisations) to which we would normally disclose information of that kind, the fact that you are able to access the information and how to contact us.

Anonymous information we collect from your use of our website.

As most websites do, we track usage patterns on our website on an anonymous aggregate basis. Each time you visit our website a web server makes a record of your visit. Specifically, it records your:

  • server address; 
  • top level domain name;
  • the time and date of the visit to the website;
  • pages accessed and the documents downloaded; and
  • the type of browser being used.

Your identity cannot reasonably be ascertained from this information. The use of session cookies on our website and in any of our web applications are for the purpose of allowing your browser to recognise the WOB Australia Pty Ltd website or to complete a task. A cookie is a small file containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer when you visit a website. When you visit the website again, the cookie allows that site to recognize your browser. Cookies may store user preferences and other information. You can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some website features or services may not function properly without cookies.

2. Use and Disclosure of Personal Information

We will use or disclose your personal information for the following purposes:

  • To provide services and content that you have requested or may be of interest to you, for example the "my resume" function on our website, newsletters or conference management. 
  • For administering our website and other systems, including by disclosing your personal information to organisations to whom we outsource functions (such as mailing and IT service providers). We prohibit our outsourced providers from using or disclosing your personal information except for their service to us or as required or authorised by or under law.
  • To create and publish relevant content, including on our website. For example:
    • where you take part in an online forum on our website you should be aware that your contact details will be visible to other participants in the forum; and
    • where a person with a user account for our website accesses the "address book" function on our website, that person can access the name, organisation and email address of each other person with a user account for our website.
  • To allow you access to limited-entry areas of our website as appropriate. 
  • For communication, statistics, research and development.  
  • For any purpose related (or directly related, in the case of your sensitive information) to any of the above purposes, being a purpose for which you would reasonably expect us to use or disclose your personal information.  
  • For any other purpose where: 
    • you have consented to the use or disclosure; or 
    • the use or disclosure is required or authorised by or under law; or
    • the use or disclosure is otherwise permitted by the Privacy Law.

3. Security and Quality of your Personal Information

We are committed to ensuring that personal information we collect about you is held securely. We will take reasonable steps to:

  • ensure that any personal information we collect, use and disclose is accurate, complete and up to date (our main method for ensuring that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date is by giving you the ability to update your user account details online and you can help us to keep the personal information we hold about you accurate, complete and up to date by updating your user account details online whenever necessary);
  • protect the personal information that we hold from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure: and
  • destroy or permanently de-identify personal information as required by the Privacy Law, subject to other legal record retention requirements.

The information we hold about you in your user account for our website can be reviewed and modified by you clicking on the "My Profile" link and selecting the "Edit My Details" option. The accuracy of the user account data is solely your responsibility and not ours. 

While we endeavour to implement high levels of security to protect users of our website, you should note that there is an inherent risk associated with the use of an insecure network such as the world wide web. We cannot exclude the possibility that a user's personal information (including emails) may be viewed, intercepted or modified by a third party. 

4. Access to and Correction of your Personal Information

You have the right to access the personal information that we hold about you, subject to any exceptions in the Privacy Law. A charge may apply for providing such access. You may also request that personal information which we hold about you be corrected. Please contact us in writing at the following address if you would like to access personal information that we hold about you:

WOB Australia Pty Ltd
Email:  wob-aus@womenonboards.net 
or by post to PO Box 787 Gosford 2250 NSW, Australia.

If access to or correction of your personal information is refused, we will provide you with written reasons for the refusal.

5. Government Identifiers

Except to the extent permitted by the Privacy Law, we will not use your Commonwealth identifiers (such as a Medicare number) as our own identifier for you nor will we disclose such identifiers to anyone else.

6. Anonymity

If it is lawful and practicable to do so, we will provide you with the option of not identifying yourself when entering into transactions with us. For example, you may browse and download public articles from our website without providing us with personal information.

7. Transborder Data Flows

If we transfer your personal information outside Australia, we will comply with those requirements of the Privacy Law which relate to transborder data flows.
 

Complaints

 

If you have any concerns or complaints about the manner in which we handle your personal information, please contact us at wob-aus@womenonboards.net. or by post to PO Box 787 Gosford, 2250 NSW. Australia.

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If you have any queries about this policy or about how we handle personal information about you, please do not hesitate to contact us using the details set out above.