Privacy Policy

Heard Financial values and respects the privacy of the people we deal with. Heard Financial is committed to protecting your privacy and complying with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and other applicable privacy laws and regulations.

This Privacy Policy (Policy) describes how we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information, and how we maintain the quality and security of your personal information.

What is personal information?

“Personal information” means any information or opinion, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable. In general terms, this includes information or an opinion that personally identifies you either directly (e.g. your name) or indirectly.

What personal information do we collect?

The personal information we collect about you depends on the nature of your dealings with us or
what you choose to share with us. The personal information we collect about you may include:

  • name
  • mailing or street address
  • date of birth
  • email address
  • phone number
  • residency
  • job title and employer
  • Tax File Number
  • bank account and credit or debit card details
  • qualifications, memberships and other accreditations
  • financial records

Under certain circumstances, Heard Financial may need to collect sensitive information about you. This might include any information or opinion about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, political association, religious or philosophical beliefs, membership of a trade union or other professional body, sexual preferences, criminal record, or health information.

If we collect your sensitive information, we will do so only with your consent, if it is necessary to prevent a serious and imminent threat to life or health, or as otherwise required or authorised by law, and we take appropriate measures to protect the security of this information.

You do not have to provide us with your personal information. Where possible, we will give you the option to interact with us anonymously or by using a pseudonym. However, if you choose to deal with us in this way or choose not to provide us with your personal information, we may not be able to provide you with our services or otherwise interact with you.

If we determine that we have obtained unsolicited personal information from you (i.e. information we don’t need in order to deliver our services to you) we will contact you and return it or otherwise remove it from our records as soon as is practicable.

How do we collect your personal information?

We collect your personal information directly from you when you:

  • interact with us in person and over the phone
  • interact with us online
  • participate in surveys or questionnaires
  • attend a Heard Financial event
  • subscribe to our mailing list
  • apply for a position with us as an employee, contractor or volunteer

We may also collect your personal information from third parties or through publicly available sources, for example from superannuation funds, investment managers and insurance companies. We collect your personal information from these third parties to allow us to provide our services to you.

How do we use your personal information?

We use personal information for many purposes in connection with our functions and activities, including the following purposes:

  • provide you with information or services that you request from us
  • deliver to you a more personalised experience and service offering
  • improve the quality of the services we offer
  • internal administrative purposes
  • marketing and research purposes
Disclosure of personal information to third parties

We may disclose your personal information to third parties in accordance with this Policy in circumstances where you would reasonably expect us to disclose your information. For example, we may disclose your personal information to:

  • your superannuation, investment and insurance providers
  • our third party service providers (for example, our IT providers)
  • our marketing providers
  • our professional services advisors
  • where we are required by law to provide personal information so that we comply with court orders, subpoenas or other legislation that requires us to provide personal information.

We may also use or disclose your personal information and in doing so we are not required to seek your additional consent:

  • when it is disclosed or used for a purpose related to the primary purposes of collection detailed above and you would reasonably expect your personal information to be used or disclosed for such a purpose
  • if we reasonably believe that the use or disclosure is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious or imminent threat to an individual’s life, health or safety or to lessen or prevent a threat to public health or safety
  • if we have reason to suspect that unlawful activity has been, or is being, engaged in; or
  • if it is required or authorised by law.
Transfer of personal information overseas

Some of the third-party service providers we disclose personal information to may be based in or have servers located outside of Australia. Where we disclose your personal information to third parties overseas, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that data security and appropriate privacy practices are maintained. We will only disclose to overseas third parties if:

  • you have given us your consent to disclose personal information to that third party; or we reasonably believe that:
  • the overseas recipient is subject to a law or binding scheme that is, overall, substantially similar to the APPs; and
  • the law or binding scheme can be enforced; or
  • the disclosure is required or authorised by an Australian law or court / tribunal order.

Because we store some of our business data electronically and may back some or all of this data up using so-called “cloud-based” technology there is a chance that some of your personal information may be disclosed to overseas recipients in the sense that its transmission via the cloud will mean it is “disclosed” to the party that operates the IT infrastructure where the data is backed up.

How do we protect your personal information?

Heard Financial will take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information that we hold about you is kept confidential and secure, including by:

  • having a robust physical security of our premises and records
  • taking measures to restrict access to only personnel who need that personal information to effectively provide services to you
  • having technological measures in place (for example, anti-virus software, fire walls)
Online activity

The Heard Financial website uses cookies. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers the website puts on your device if you allow it. These cookies recognise when your device has visited our website before, so we can distinguish you from other users of the website. This improves your experience and the Heard Financial website.

We do not use cookies to identify you, just to improve your experience on our website. If you do not wish to use the cookies, you can amend the settings on your internet browser so it will not automatically download cookies. However, if you remove or block cookies on your computer, please be aware that your browsing experience and our website’s functionality may be affected.

Links to third party sites
The Heard Financial website may contain links to websites operated by third parties. If you access a third party website through our website, personal information may be collected by that third party website. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party provider or website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party provider or website. Third party providers / websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies.
Direct marketing

We may send you direct marketing communications and information about our services, opportunities, or events that we consider may be of interest to you if you have requested or consented to receive such communications.

These communications may be sent in various forms, including mail, SMS, fax and email, in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Australian 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.

You may opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us at any time by following the instructions to “unsubscribe” set out in the relevant communication or by contacting us using the details set out in the “How to contact us” section below.

In addition, we may also use your personal information or disclose your personal information to third parties for the purposes of advertising, including online behavioural advertising, website personalisation, and to provide targeted or retargeted advertising content to you (including through third party websites).

Retention of personal information
We will not keep your personal information for longer than we need to. In most cases, this means that we will only retain your personal information for the duration of your relationship with us unless we are required to retain your personal information to comply with applicable laws, for example record-keeping obligations.
Adoption, use or disclosure of government related identifiers
We won’t use any Government related identifier as our own identifier of you unless it is necessary for us to deliver our services to you and in doing so, we need to liaise or communicate with a Government Department or agency that requires us to use a Government related identifier.
How to access and correct your personal information

Under the Australian Privacy Principles, you have the right to request access to any personal information that we may hold about you and to advise us if the information should be corrected. The Australian Privacy Principles set out the circumstances when we can refuse those requests. If we do refuse your request, we will provide you with a written notice that sets out the reasons (unless it would be unreasonable to provide them to you).

Subject to our right to refuse access, we will provide you with a report that lists any personal information that we may hold about you.

Our policy is to provide written acknowledgement of our receipt of any request for access to personal information or a request for correction of personal information within 7 days of the request being received. We will then provide a written response within 30 days of our receipt of the request.

The Privacy (Tax File Number) Rule 2015 and the protection of tax file number information

We are a Tax File Number (TFN) recipient. When we collect a TFN from you we will advise you of the law that makes collection necessary.

We also advise you that not providing a TFN upon request is not against any law but may have consequences (such as tax rates applied by ATO). We will (securely) retain TFNs until it is no longer necessary to do so in order to provide our services.

If we do destroy a TFN record we shall do so in a secure way to minimise the risk of unauthorised disclosure of the TFN record.

Complaints

We have put in place an effective mechanism and procedure to resolve privacy complaints and enquiries. We will ensure that all complaints and enquiries are dealt with in a reasonably appropriate timeframe so that any decision (if any decision is required to be made) is made expeditiously and in a manner that does not compromise the integrity or quality of any such decision (in respect of a complaint).

If you wish to make an enquiry about your personal information or make a complaint because you believe that we may have breached the Australian Privacy Principles or a privacy code that applies to us, please email our Responsible Manager at [email protected] or telephone 08 7070 1600.

You may also write to us at 93 Frome Street, Adelaide SA 5000.

In order to resolve a complaint, we:

  • will liaise with you to identify and define the nature and cause of the complaint
  • may request that you provide the details of the complaint in writing
  • will keep you informed of the likely time within which we will respond to your complaint, and
  • will inform you of the legislative basis (if any) of our decision in resolving such complaint.

We will respond to each request within a reasonable time. We will also maintain a record of your complaint in a Register of Complaints.

If a party has lodged a complaint with us and is not satisfied with our response, they may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au.

How to contact us

If you have a question or concern in relation to our handling of your personal information or this Policy, you can contact us for assistance via our contact us page.