Privacy

QRIDA (we, us, our) understands you are concerned about your privacy and the confidentiality and security of information you provide to us. 

The Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld) and the Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) govern the way QRIDA must manage your personal information, and this policy sets out how we collect, use, disclose and otherwise manage personal information about you.  To download a copy of this Act, please click on Information Privacy Act 2009. 

QRIDA will comply with the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) when making any decision, including with respect to collection, use, and disclosure of personal information. 

Collection of Personal Information 

Types of information collected 

We may collect and hold personal information about you (that is, information or an opinion that can identify you) and is relevant to providing you with the information, goods or services you are seeking. 

The kinds of information we typically collect depends on our relationship with you.  We may collect information from people associated with businesses who seek information, financial assistance and advisory support through one of our programs, participants in our Rural Debt Survey, research participants, job applicants, employees, visitors to our website, and people seeking information about us and our goods and services. 

If you are a person associated with a business seeking information, financial assistance and advisory support through one of our programs, we may collect your name, gender, address, phone number, email address, other contact details, any personal information submitted in a program application, bank account details, place and type of business, property name and property details, and other information relevant to providing you with the goods and services you are, or someone else you know is, seeking. If you are a Rural Debt Survey participant or research participant, we may collect personal information contained within your survey or research submissions. If you are a job applicant or employee, we may collect your name, contact details, personal information contained within a job application or resume, bank account and superannuation fund information, tax file number, and personal information provided by you throughout the employment relationship. Some of this information may be considered more sensitive than other information, such as health information, racial or ethnic background, sexual orientation or practices, criminal record, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association or trade union, genetic information, biometric information, and biometric templates. 

We may also collect information through the use of our website and digital platforms including your IP address, user preferences, ‘cookie’ information (including demographic information), geographical location, user server address, user top level domain name, date and time you visited the site, the pages you accessed and documents you downloaded, previous site visited, type of browser you use. No attempt will be made to identify users or their browsing activities except in the unlikely event of an investigation, where a law enforcement agency may request inspection of the activity logs, through appropriate legal processes. 

Method of collection 

Personal information is collected through a variety of avenues, generally directly from you through the use of any of our standard forms, when you sign up to receive our email or other communications, using our website or social media accounts, when applying for assistance or support, via email, via our website or social media channels, or through a telephone conversation with you, in person, or through an employment application from you. 

There may, however, be some instances where personal information about you will be collected indirectly because it is unreasonable or impractical to collect personal information directly from you.  For example, we may collect personal information about you from a third party acting on your behalf in applying for assistance or support (including your accountant, solicitor, business consultant, bank, financier, supplier, processor, or other agent named or identified by you) any Commonwealth, state or local government department, agency or authority that QRIDA or an authorised representative may consider relevant with respect to your application (together, Relevant Persons).   

If you have authorised QRIDA to be an access seeker under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), QRIDA may also obtain credit reporting information and credit eligibility information from a credit reporting body or other credit provider, in order to assess the eligibility of your application.  If you are a job applicant, we may collect information from a recruiter, referee or past employer in order to assess your application.  We will usually notify you about these instances in advance, or where that is not possible, as soon as reasonably practicable after the information has been collected. 

If we receive unsolicited information about you that we do not ask for or which is not directly related to our functions or activities, we may be required to destroy or de-identify that information, provided it is lawful and reasonable to do so. 

Purpose of collection 

QRIDA is a provider of government financial assistance and advisory support to rural and regional Queensland, and we also administer the state government’s Farm Business Debt Mediation program, Farm Debt Restructure Office, conduct a biennial Rural Debt Survey, undertake research, and provide advice to the Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries.  The personal information that we collect and hold about you depends on your interaction with us. Generally, we will collect, use and hold your personal information if it is reasonably necessary for or directly related to the performance of our functions and activities and for the purposes of: 

• processing and assessing your application for assistance or support
• providing information, goods and services to you or someone else you know
• responding to your enquiries and requests for goods and services or information
• providing you with information about other goods and services that we and other agencies and organisations with whom we have affiliations, offer that may be of interest to you.  If you do not wish to receive information about other goods and services that may be of interest to you (including other assistance programs), please contact us on the details set out below
• providing you with information relevant to your type of business or other area of expertise or interest
• facilitating our internal business operations including the fulfilment of any legal requirements (including maintaining employment records) and the assessment of job applications
• contacting you to provide a testimonial for us or to share your experience as a client or employee
• analysing our goods and services and customer needs with a view to developing new or improved goods and services; and 
• collating statistical data. 

Email correspondence, blog comments and information provided via webforms can constitute public records and can be retained as required by the Public Records Act 2023 and other relevant legislation. 

Media 

QRIDA requires your consent to film or photograph you. If you are appearing in a film or photograph for QRIDA, please download the Film and Photo Consent Form, and sign and return to the marketing department via email contact_us@qrida.qld.gov.au. 

Failure to provide information 

If the personal information you provide to us is incomplete or inaccurate, we may be unable to provide you, or someone else you know, with the information, goods, or services you, or they, are seeking, and we will not be able to assess your application for assistance or support. Failure to provide all or some of the information required of an employee may adversely affect our ability to comply with our legal obligations of your employment. 

Website analytics 

Our website may contain links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of linked websites and linked websites are not subject to our privacy policies and procedures. 

Our website uses Google Analytics and cookies. The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and to prepare customised web pages for them. Cookies do not identify you personally, but they may link back to a database record about you. We use cookies to monitor usage of our website and to create a personal record of when you visit our website and what pages you view so that we may serve you more effectively. You can read more about how Google Analytics uses data here. You can choose not to allow Google Analytics to collect your information by opting out of Google Analytics. 

Use and disclosure 

Generally, we only use or disclose personal information about you for the purposes for which it was collected (as set out above and in any contemporaneous notification at the time of collection). We may disclose personal information about you to: 

• Our employees, contractors, and related and affiliated entities for the purposes of facilitating our and their internal business processes and fulfilling requests by you
• Relevant Persons when assessing your application for a program and maintaining your involvement in the program
• Queensland government departments, agencies or authorities for policy planning and other governmental purposes of that department, agency, or authority
• Credit reporting bodies to assist the Australian credit reporting system to function effectively, including: 
  • your identification
  • that credit has been applied for and the amount
  • that QRIDA is a current credit provider to you
  • details of payments which become overdue for more than 60 days
  • that payments are no longer overdue
  • details of payments made by you which have been dishonoured more than once
  • that you have committed fraud in applying for or receiving credit from QRIDA or in evading your obligations regarding the credit received, or have attempted to do so; and 
  • that the credit provided to you by QRIDA has been paid or discharged
• Debt collection agencies if you default on your credit obligations 
• Third party service providers, who assist us in operating our business, and providing services to you (including event organisers, cloud data storage suppliers, information technology service providers, mail distribution service suppliers, or professional advisers such as lawyers, accountants, and auditors) and these service providers may not be required to comply with our privacy policy; 
• Other agencies and organisations with whom we have affiliations so that those organisations may provide you with information about goods and services that may be relevant and of interest to you 
• Other third parties to whom you have agreed we may disclose your information
• And as otherwise permitted or required by law, including: 
  • where we reasonably believe you would expect us to disclose to another entity
  • where we have notified you that we will disclose to another entity
  • where disclosure will prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to somebody’s life or health
  • where disclosure is reasonably necessary for law enforcement, or for the protection of public revenue. 

We will also disclose your personal information to a third party where the personal information was collected from you for the purpose of passing that personal information on. 

Where it is necessary to disclose information to other entities to meet the needs of a program, the application form will detail those specific disclosures. 

Financial information which may enable you to be identified and which is received by us for the purposes of assessing eligibility and level of assistance under specific programs of support, will not be disclosed to any third party or government department without your permission. We won’t sell, trade, or exchange your personal information without your permission. 

With respect to each recipient of your personal information above, the information is disclosed to the recipient for the purposes for which it was collected and for the recipient’s own internal use with respect to that purpose. Credit reporting bodies may include information disclosed to them by QRIDA in reports provided to other credit providers to assist them to assess your credit worthiness. QRIDA is not aware of any other disclosures of the information made by the recipients. Where we are aware of a recipient’s usual practice to disclose your personal information to another entity, we will notify you at the time of collection or as soon as reasonably practicable afterwards. 

Disclosure of personal information overseas 

We are assisted by a variety of external service providers to deliver our services, some of whom may be located overseas. These third parties are too numerous to list and they change from time to time. Some examples of the types of third parties include technology service providers who may be located in the United States of America, such as Google Analytics. You agree that we may disclose your personal information to an overseas entity to enable us to perform our functions and activities and for any other purpose notified to you under this privacy policy or at the time of collection. 

Security 

We store your personal information in different ways, including in paper and electronic form. The security of your personal information is important to us. We take strong precautions to protect your data from loss, unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure, and against other misuse. However, this site does not provide facilities for securely transmitting information across the Internet. 

This site contains links to non-Queensland Government websites. QRIDA is not responsible for the privacy or security practices or the content of such websites. 

Access and Correction 

You may access the personal information we hold about you, upon making a written request on the approved form.  We will respond to your request within a reasonable period (and in any event within the timelines required by the Information Privacy Act 2009).  We may charge a fee to provide access to a document in accordance with the Information Privacy Act 2009. 

We may decline a request for access in circumstances prescribed by the Information Privacy Act 2009, and if we do, we will give you a written notice that sets out the reasons for the refusal, including details of the mechanisms available to you to have our decision to refuse access reviewed. 

If, upon receiving access to your personal information or at any other time, you believe the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, please notify us immediately.  We will take reasonable steps to correct the information so that it is accurate, complete and up to date. 

If we refuse to correct your personal information, we will give you a written notice that sets out our reasons for our refusal, including details of the mechanisms available to you to have our decision to refuse correction reviewed. 

Complaints and feedback 

If you wish to make a complaint about a breach of the Information Privacy Act 2009 or the IPPs, please contact us using the details below and we will take reasonable steps to investigate the complaint and respond to you. 

If after this process you are not satisfied with our response, you can submit a complaint to the Office of the Information Commissioner Queensland (OICQ). To lodge a complaint, visit the ‘Complaints’ section of the OICQ’s website, located at https://www.oic.qld.gov.au/about/privacy/make-a-privacy-complaint, to obtain the relevant complaint forms, or contact the OICQ’s office. 

If you have any queries or concerns about our privacy policy or the way we handle your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer at: 

Street address: Level 26, 32 Turbot Street, Brisbane, QLD, 4000 

Email address: contact_us@qrida.gov.au 

Freecall:  1800 623 946 

Website:  www.qrida.qld.gov.au/customer-complaints

For more information about privacy in general, you can visit the OICQ’s website at www.oic.qld.gov.au.