BuyMyPlace - Privacy Policy

BuyMyPlace is the registered trading name of BuyMyHome Pty. Ltd. (ACN 126 563 746) referred to as "BMP" or "us" or "our" or "we" in these terms and conditions.

It is important that all our site users understand and agree to our terms and conditions and we encourage you to contact us should you require any clarification. To contact us send us an email to support@buymyplace.com.au.

Our General Terms and Conditions, our Privacy Policy, our Refunds and Returns Policy, our Property Listing Policy, our Site Content Policy, our Illegal Activities Policy , our Merchant Services Policy and (if you are a Merchant) our Merchant Agreement, and other rules, guidelines and policies referred to in these terms and conditions or posted on the BMP website by BMP, as amended from time to time, are the terms and conditions relating to the BMP service and the BMP website ("Agreement") that apply between you and BMP.

BMP needs a wide range of "personal information" in order to carry out its business. "Personal information" is essentially information or an opinion that can identify you or any other person.

This Privacy Policy explains BMP’s approach to the handling of personal information, and how we comply with our privacy obligations. All copyright in this Privacy Policy is owned BMP and it must not be copied or otherwise used without BMP’s express written consent.

BMP is bound by the National Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988. You can find more information about the Privacy Act and the National Privacy Principles on the Federal Privacy Commissioner’s website at www.privacy.gov.au.

1. What personal information does BMP collect and why?

BMP collects personal information from users of the site and the BMP service, and from merchants, partners, contractors, employees, and other people we do business with.

BMP primarily collects personal information for the purpose of:

• providing the BMP service and the site (e.g. to administer the correct communications between , administer our site user’s accounts, charge fees and to communicate generally with our site users and business contacts);

• sending you information and updates in relation to the site and the BMP service, and the services offered by our affiliate merchant partners and other suppliers;

• ongoing research and development of the different types of services and features that we manage, create and/or market to our site users from time to time;

• exchanging information (which you consent to) with any partners we partner with from time to time to enable any of the transactions or other business we manage, create and/or market to occur; and

• extracting and analysing information generated by our site users in the course of using the BMP service and site, so that we can manage and improve the site and the BMP service, market to our site users, and develop new products and services.

To illustrate, the personal information we collect about users of the site and BMP service includes:

• Identification information: This includes each site user’s name, address, contact details (including telephone numbers and email address), bank account details, credit card details, date of birth and driver’s licence number; and

• Property information: This includes the records and related information that you create during your listing and marketing of any of your properties for sale or refinance on the BMP site

In most cases we will collect this information from you directly (by telephone or by your use of the BMP website) however in some cases we may be provided with information from other site users including our affiliate Merchant partners and other users and suppliers, from our own records of how you use the BMP website, or from other publicly available sources.

We need this personal information to provide our site users with the best possible service, to enable us to refine the services that we create and manage and to better develop the various types of related product offerings that we will market from time to time to our site users.

This information is collected from our site user profile creation process and when site users communicate with us through our site during the course of the events that we create and market.

We also collect:

• Business Contact Information from and about our suppliers and other people we do business with (e.g. our merchants, our suppliers, our legal advisors, our insurers). This information is needed so that we can manage our business;

• Employee Information, however, this Privacy Policy does not apply to personal information collected or held by us about our employees. Employees should contact our HR Department if they have privacy questions;

• Website activity about what our customers are doing on our site and related websites. This helps us determine how best to provide useful information to our customers and to understand which parts of our site, products and other services are of most interest and use to them.

2. How does BMP use personal information?

BMP is a web based portal for managed property, mortgage finance and related services. We use certain aggregated, non-personal information (from sources which may include your personal information) to provide various property market and mortgage finance related data services for use by our site customers, to manage and administer site use of the BMP virtual community and to operate our business generally.

If you are a site user, we may use your personal information to verify your identity, process your site use application, assist you to subscribe or purchase products made available as part of the BMP service, debit your nominated bank account or credit card for payment of any services you may purchase from BMP or any of our affiliate merchant partners and for any other BMP activity you may choose and to generally administer your account so as to provide you with the best possible service.

We will also use your personal information to communicate with you, including answering any enquires you may have.

Unless you tell us otherwise, we may also use your personal information to market to you special promotions, newsletters and other marketing material. For instance, BMP may email its site users information about its own promotions, or those offered by our business partners.

If you don’t want us to do this, we give you an opportunity to "opt out" from receiving such material on our pre-exercise questionnaire form. You can opt out at any time by activating the "opt out" feature that is included in your site user profile preferences. Similarly, you can also choose to "opt in" by de-activating this feature as and when you select.

3. Does BMP share my personal information with anyone else?

We analyse the personal information of our site users so as to develop services and products that may specifically be of interest to them. From time to time this will involve us speaking to other service providers to whom we may disclose your personal information in a few different ways with your prior consent, or to whom we may disclose aggregated non-personal information (based on sources including your personal information). These companies may help us provide better services to you, manage or enhance our customer data generally, assess your interest in our products and service offerings, provide customer service or assist us with various surveys.

Like most businesses, sometimes we outsource or "contract out" specific support services from time to time, and this may mean that our contractors see your personal information. For instance, sometimes we may engage IT contractors to maintain our databases. All our contractors are subject to strict confidentiality obligations, which means that they are authorised only to use personal information in order to provide the services or to perform the functions required by us.

We will disclose personal information if we are legally authorised to do so or under a legal requirement to do so (e.g. under a court order, or if required under legislation), or if an authorised request is made from a law enforcement agency.

Otherwise, we will only disclose personal information with the consent of the relevant individuals.

At times we may be required by law or litigation to disclose your personal information. We may also disclose information about you if we determine that for national security, law enforcement or other issues of public importance, disclosure is necessary.

4. How can I access my Personal Information?

Privacy laws give you rights to seek access to the personal information we hold about you.

In limited circumstances, we may refuse your request to access, in which case, we will give you a reason for that refusal. We are not required to provide access where denying access is required or authorised by law or providing access would be unlawful.

In the first instance, all of the information that we have collected about you will be visible to you by accessing your site user profile on the BMP site. If you believe that there is any other personal information that we may have about you which is clearly identifiable as your information, then you can seek access by completing an access request form on our site. Generally, we should be able to provide you with access within a month of your request, although we may need more time if your request is complicated. Ordinarily, BMP will not charge you for the cost of providing access to your personal information. However, if we do propose to charge you, we will advise you of the relevant charge before we provide you with access.

We try to ensure that all the personal information that we hold about you is accurate, complete and up-to-date.

However, we rely on you to help us with this by ensuring that the details you create in your site user profile are accurate and up to date. In order to ensure that all your personal information is accurate, complete and up-to-date we rely on you to contact our Privacy Officer to inform us of any changes that may need to be made. We will contact you if there is any issue about amending the record of personal information we hold about you.

If you wish to discuss our method of providing access or correction to personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer with your query.

5. Is my Personal Information kept secure?

BMP takes reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we hold is stored in a secure environment and protected from unauthorised access, modification, theft, misuse, alteration or disclosure, including:

• locking our offices after hours;

• protecting all our computers with password and virus protection;

• protecting our site by a firewall.

We also require our staff and contractors to adhere to our Privacy Policy in all dealings with us and to acknowledge the importance of storing personal information in a secure way, and to treat it like confidential information.

Where your personal information is no longer required by BMP it will be destroyed or de-identified.

BMP offers on-line services only to our site users. It is not permitted to become a site user of BMP without completing the site user profile creation process that is accessed from our site. A part of this process involves providing BMP with the minimum amount of personal information that is requested as part of this web based process.

6. Website/online privacy

As we also collect personal information through the site, this Privacy Policy also outlines our approach to online privacy issues. In that context, it is to be read as forming part of the terms of use for our site.

Generally, BMP will handle personal information collected online consistently with the way that it handles personal information collected offline.

Other matters specific to BMP’s handling of personal information online are set out below.

Cookies: When you visit our site, we will not collect any personal information unless you chose to provide it to us (e.g. by sending us emails or creating or updating your user profile through our site). However, we will collect certain data that does not identify you personally (sometimes called "web log information") when you visit certain pages, such as the type of browser and operating system you have. We may also use "cookies" which are small files that are stored on your computer and that manage the security and navigation process of the site. You can choose to block these cookies but some portions of the site may not function correctly if you do. This type of data is collected for statistical purposes only, and while cookies will identify your computer, they are unlikely to identify you personally.

Email/SMS marketing: We will not email or SMS you marketing material unless you have consented to this. This is a requirement of the Spam Act 2003. Further, you can unsubscribe from our e-newsletter or other bulletins by using the "unsubscribe" facility contained in each electronic publication we send.

Site security policy: Our site uses technology to maximise the security of your personal information.

7. Contact details and other information

If you have any queries or concerns about privacy or this Privacy Policy, you can contact our Privacy Officer as follows using the "Contact Us" form on our site.

This Privacy Policy applies to BuyMyHome Pty. Ltd. A.C.N. 126 563 746 trading as buymyplace.com.au, its employees and contractors.

BMP may change its Privacy Policy at any time. This Privacy Policy was last updated in August 2008.