Privacy Policy

Part A – Privacy Statement

Louise Patterson Chartered Accountant

SBE Services Pty Ltd t/a Integrated Strategy, Accounting & Tax (ABN 95 622 392 410)

We recognise the value and importance of your privacy.

This policy sets out how we deal with the personal information we collect. The collection and handling of personal information is covered by the Privacy Act 1988 (the Act).

What is personal information?

The Act defines personal information as:-

  1. information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable:
  1. whether the information or opinion is true or not; and
  2. whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not.

Collection of personal information

We collect and hold personal information from clients, customers, employees, contractors and other people. We only collect this information when it is necessary to do so for business purposes.

Examples of the types of personal information that we collect from time to time include names, addresses, job titles, tax file numbers, financial institution details, phone numbers, email addresses and shareholding balances. In the course of providing our services to clients we usually collect and hold more detailed personal information, including financial information.

Personal information can be provided to us by you directly or by other people such as brokers and financial institutions. We may collect personal information during phone calls, meetings, or from documents clients provide to us. We may keep a record of any contact a client has with us, such as notes of a telephone conversation, or a copy of an email the client sends to us, which can include personal information.

Personal information may also be collected or submitted to us, whether offline or online, including through our websites and any mobile sites, applications, widgets and other mobile interactive features, through our official social media pages as well as through email messages that we send to you.

How we use your personal information

We only use your personal information for the purpose for which it was collected. Generally, that will be to provide you with services that are connected to that purpose. Some examples of why we may use your personal information include:-

  • in responding to a question you ask us
  • to maintain contact with you and provide you with updates from time to time as to the progress of a service we are delivering
  • to keep you and other clients informed of the services we offer
  • for general management and reporting purposes, such as invoicing and account management
  • for employment or training purposes of our staff
  • for purposes related to our business administration such as auditing, business planning, billing, record keeping or in compliance with legislation

We may collect, hold, or use information about you to market our services, usually by email. When you become our client, you agree to receiving marketing email from us. You may opt out of this service at any time by writing to us at 375 Macquarie Street, South Hobart or emailing us at louisep@isatca.com.au. It may take us some time to process your request, so please allow us 28 days to do so. We will process your request as soon as we can.

Security of Personal Information

We only collect your personal information in a way that is lawful, fair and not unreasonably intrusive.

We do everything reasonably possible to ensure the security of your personal information from risks such as loss or unauthorised access. We retain your personal information electronically or in hard copy files. We do not use cloud storage for document storage. Our emails are hosted by a cloud storage facility which is housed within Australia. By choosing and accessing cloud accounting software for your business you acknowledge that your information will likely be housed in cloud storage facilities located in either Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the United Kingdom, Ireland, United States of America, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Canada, South Africa, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Netherlands. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet or data storage can be guaranteed to be totally secure.

When your documents are no longer needed we either arrange for them to be shredded or we store them at a reputable secure storage facility.

We try to achieve industry best practice in securing your personal information. When your personal information is no longer needed for a legal or business reason, we destroy or de-identify it as soon as we can. Sometimes it is not possible for us to destroy or de-identify personal information because there are certain legal requirements for the retention of data that we are required to comply with. We do everything reasonably possible to ensure that this kind of data is secure or not identifiable.

Will we disclose your personal information to anyone else?

We do not disclose your personal information to other people or organisations unless:-

  • we are required to do so by law
  • it is lawful for us to do so and permitted by this policy
  • we have your consent to do so
  • we believe it is necessary to provide you with a service you have requested

Section 16A of the Act sets out a list of the general situations in which we are permitted to collect, use or disclose your personal information.

We sometimes use service providers to help us deliver the services you have requested from us. Personal information may sometimes be disclosed to those contractors or service providers. We require our service providers to adhere to our privacy policy and not to keep your personal information or use it for any unauthorised purpose.

We do not sell or trade your personal information with third parties.

Government related identifier

Section 6 of the Act defines a ‘government related identifier’ (GID). A GID is usually something that the government or a government agency assigns to you to identify you such as your Tax File Number (TFN).

Although at times we may ask for or hold details regarding certain GID numbers we do not use that information as identifiers of our own. We only use GID’s for purposes required by law, such as when we supply your TFN to the Australian Taxation Office.

Sensitive information

Some types of personal information are more sensitive than others. The Act defines ‘sensitive information’ as;

  1. information or an opinion about an individual’s:
    1. racial or ethnic origin; or
    2. political opinions; or
    3. membership of a political association; or
    4. religious beliefs or affiliations; or
    5. philosophical beliefs; or
    6. membership of a professional or trade association; or
    7. membership of a trade union; or
    8. sexual orientation or practices; or
    9. criminal record;
  1. that is also personal information; or
  1. health information about an individual; or
  2. genetic information about an individual that is not otherwise health information; or
  3. biometric information that is to be used for the purpose of automated biometric verification or biometric identification; or
  4. biometric templates.

We only collect, use or disclose your sensitive information where it is necessary and lawful for us to do so.

Access and correction of your personal information

We do the best we can to keep your personal information up to date and make sure it is accurate.

Under the Act you are entitled to access personal information that we hold about you. There are exceptions in the Act where we may not be obliged to do so, including situations where providing you with access to that information would pose a serious threat to someone’s safety, where it would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of other individuals, the request is frivolous or vexations, or where to do so would be unlawful.

If you ask for access to your personal information we will endeavour to provide a response to your request as soon as we reasonably can. We will provide you with access to the information you have requested so long as it is reasonable and practicable for us to do so. We may charge you a fee for access to the information you have requested, but the fee will not apply to the making of the request for information, and it will not be excessive.

If we refuse to give you access to personal information you have requested we will provide you with a written notice that sets out the reasons for our refusal and the mechanisms available to complain about the refusal.

You have the right to ask us to correct information about you whish is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.

If you wish to make an application for access to your personal information please contact us at the following address:-

Phone: 0400 058 440
In writing: 375 Macquarie Street, South Hobart Tas 7004
Email: louisep@isatca.com.au

Our policy

If you have any questions or comments about this policy, or you wish to lodge a complaint about the way we have handled personal information about you, please contact us at the address set out above. Any complaint should be in writing. We will consider your complaint and endeavour to reply within 14 days. If you believe that we have breached the Act or the Australian Privacy Principles you may wish to complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. The Commissioner’s details are:

Phone: 1300 363 992
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Fax: 02 9284 9666
Post: GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001.

This policy was last updated in July 2018.