Firststepinvest.com.au Pty Limited and its related bodies corporate operate the following websites across desktop, mobile, tablet and apps (including any subdomains):
firststepinvest.com.au Pty Limited and its related bodies melbournesubdivision.com.au, offtheplanrealestate.com.au Where we refer to the data practices of a specific business in this Privacy Policy, "we", "our" or "us" refers to the operating entity of that business, as specified above.
This Privacy Policy sets out the manner in which we collect, use, disclose and manage personal information. By using the Websites, subscribing to our services or entering into an agreement with us in relation to the Websites, you are taken to have read, and agreed to the collection, use, disclosure and handling of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
We may modify this Privacy Policy at any time. You should review this Privacy Policy periodically so that you are updated on any changes. If you are a customer and the modification may cause you material detriment, we will give you at least 30 days’ written notice via email before the modification is to take effect and you may terminate your agreement with us during this period.
We recognise the importance of protecting personal information. We do not, without your consent, collect sensitive information as defined under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act“), such as racial or ethnicity information, political opinions or associations, criminal records or health information.
In collecting and handling personal information, we are bound by the Privacy Act, including the Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs“), and applicable privacy regulations.
We may collect personal information about you including, but not limited to your name, address, phone number, email, gender, occupation, personal interests and any other information provided.
If you access any of our services through a social network site or login to our websites using your social network credentials such as Facebook, we will collect limited information provided to us by that social network site, such as user name, site ID, profile photo and email address.
If you submit personal information to us in relation to an employment opportunity, we may also collect information about your employment and academic history.
We may also collect non-personal information about you including, but not limited to, data relating to your activities on the Websites via tracking technologies such as cookies, web beacons and measurement software or data relating to survey responses.
You acknowledge that the personal information you provide us and which we collect from you, is your own information or information which you have been authorised to provide to us.
For some services and products, we may also collect your personal information to enable verification of your identity, including information from your passport, driver's licence and health care and concession cards.
If you apply for a home loan or connect with a mortgage broker using our websites, we may also collect information such as your date of birth, bank account details, occupation, age and number of dependants and cohabitants, how long you have resided at your current address and proof of earnings and expenses. In some cases, such as where you apply for an insurance product, we will, with your consent, collect sensitive information such as your health information. We may also collect credit information about you. Credit information is information which is used to assess your eligibility to be provided with finance and may include any finance that you have outstanding, your repayment history in respect of those loans and any defaults. Usually, credit information is exchanged between credit and finance providers and credit reporting bodies.
We may collect personal information about you from a variety of sources including, but not limited to:
We may collect personal information about you;
We may also collect your personal information through our related bodies corporate, our service providers and third parties so that we may provide a better or more relevant service or product to you.
If you apply to us for credit or enquire about a mortgage broker or apply for a home loan, we may also obtain personal information about you from credit reporting bodies (see our Credit Reporting Policy below for more details), other credit providers, existing or previous suppliers of goods or services, your bank, finance brokers, accountants, lawyers and certain other businesses for the purposes of assessing your application. We will collect information directly form you where possible.
We use the personal information we have collected largely for the purpose of providing you with products and services that you have requested, responding to your enquiries, creating and maintaining your account and ensuring you comply and adhere to our website terms of use.
More specifically, we may use personal information which we have collected to:
If all or part of this information is not provided, we may not be able to provide these services.
If you submit personal information to us in relation to an employment opportunity with us, we may also use your personal information to:
We may:
If we do contact you by using your personal information in accordance with either of the above, we will give you the opportunity to request that your information not be used for further direct marketing in the future.
We may also, if you request us to by opting-in through your offtheplanrealestate.com Connect or share your information with third parties so they may contact you directly about their offers, promotions, goods or services.
We may disclose personal information to our related bodies corporate, service providers or business partners.
We may also disclose your personal information:
If you request information from any organisation through our websites, you will need to check their privacy policy to find out how they handle your personal information. We are not responsible for the way these organisations collect, use, disclose or handle personal information you provide to them through our websites.
Additional information
If you use any services provided by or in connection with any broker of financial institution we may refer you to, we may also disclose your personal information to:
Personal information submitted by our customers and visitors to our websites may be held on servers located in Australia or in the data centres of our outsourced data processors with data centres in Australia, the United States of America, Europe and Asia. We transfer data outside of Australia to our service providers in order to obtain secure storage, back-up and data retrieval services and to provide services. We have implemented policies and procedures to safeguard the secure storage and processing of data with our related companies and have verified the security arrangements of our outsourced data processors. When you provide us with your personal information you give us your consent to store your personal information outside of Australia for the purposes described above.
Where we have obtained your consent to do so, we may also share your personal information with our service providers and other third parties located outside Australia so that they can provide you with any products or services requested by you, including contacting you in relation to the products or services. As these entities are located outside of Australia, they are not required to comply with the Privacy Act and you will not be able to seek any redress under the Privacy Act in connection with the use of your information.
We strive to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of personal information we collect. We have established safeguards and use reasonable security measures to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. Our employees, contractors, agents and service providers who provide services related to our information systems, are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by us. We review and update our security measures in light of current technologies. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be totally secure.
We will endeavour to take all reasonable steps to keep accurate and up to date, any information which we hold about you. If, at any time, you discover that information held about you is incorrect or you would like to review and confirm the accuracy of your personal information, you can contact us.
You can also gain access to the personal information we hold about you, subject to certain exceptions provided for by law. To request access to your personal information, please contact us.
We are committed to providing our customers with a fair and responsible system for the handling of complaints.
If at any time you have any concerns, complaints or questions in relation to your privacy or the operation of any of our businesses, please contact us, so that we may resolve your concerns.
We will consider your query and endeavour to respond to you promptly.
For more information about privacy issues in Australia and protecting your privacy, visit the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website.
We aim to give you a highly relevant experience on our sites and apps. This involves us collecting and using information about the content you engage with, such as images, articles, calculators and ads, along with any information you provide to us via your realestate.com.au account (if you have one). We then show you ads that we believe will be engaging. You can opt out of us personalising your advertising experience by going to the opt out page.
Apple iOS App users
Our Apple iOS Apps have been tailored to meet Apple’s App Tracking Transparency requirements. Unlike our other websites, our iOS Apps do not track our iOS users for the purposes of personalised or targeted advertising. In particular, this means that our iOS Apps do not link user or device data collected from our iOS Apps with user or device data collected from third party apps, websites or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes. User and device data from our iOS Apps is not shared with data brokers. Other than the iOS App-specific cookie restrictions and limitations set out in this paragraph, this Cookies and Web Beacons section below summarises how our iOS Apps and Websites obtain and use cookies.
General
We use cookies, web beacons and measurement software and tools on the Websites and so do our services providers and third parties such as our analytics, advertising or ad serving partners. We use and disclose the information collected through the use of cookies, web beacons and measurement software and tools in accordance with this Privacy Policy. This includes using the information to report statistics, analyse trends, administer our services, diagnose problems and target and improve the quality of our products and services. We may allow other third parties to use their own cookies and web beacons to collect information about your visits to the Websites.
We may combine our cookies, information collected through the cookies and web beacons on the Websites with other information (including information collected by third parties using their own cookies and web beacons and providing our cookies and information to third parties) and use analytics services such as Firebase Analytics – to provide better or more relevant services and advertising to you on the Websites and third party websites. Our service providers and other third parties may do the same in order to provide more relevant services and advertising to you through other websites that you may visit.
If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, web beacons or measurement software and tools, you may be able to delete or reject Cookies or some of the measurement software features through your browser or the settings section of your mobile or tablet device. Disabling these features may cause some of the functions on the Websites, or products and services not to work properly.
We provide links to websites outside of the Websites, as well as to third party websites. We also allow some third parties to display widgets and applications on our websites that allow you to interact and share content including social media buttons such as Facebook share and like, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. These linked sites, applications and widgets are not under our control, and we cannot accept responsibility for the conduct of companies linked to the Websites, or their collection of information through these third-party applications or widgets. Before disclosing your personal information on any other website, or using these applications or widgets we advise you to examine the terms and conditions of using that website and the relevant third party’s data collection practices and controls in their privacy policy.
We use virtual phone numbers on the Websites to track the origin, time and duration of phone enquiries to our customers. We do not record calls which you make to agents. Our third-party provider sends this information to the agent you called so that they can follow up on missed calls relating to realestate.com.au listings. We also use this data in aggregated form, to report statistics, analyse trends, administer our services, diagnose problems and target and improve the quality of our products and services. If you do not want us to collect information regarding your call, you can contact an agent by email or by telephone using the number listed on the agent’s website.
If you access our Websites from the European Economic Area (EEA), you may have additional rights under the General Data Protection Regulation, being Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) in relation to the handling of your Personal Data (as defined in Article 4 of the GDPR).
In providing our services to you, we may monitor your activity on the Websites using automated processes, including for the purposes of counting usage of our websites and creating audience profiles. We do this to provide you with more tailored and relevant services, including to show you more relevant properties.
In addition to other rights set out in this Privacy Policy, in certain circumstances you may:
Where your Personal Data is transferred outside of the EEA, it will only be transferred to countries that have been identified as providing adequate protection for Personal Data, or to a third party where we have approved transfer mechanisms in place to protect your Personal Data – i.e., by entering into the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, or by ensuring the entity is Privacy Shield certified (for transfers to US-based third parties).
For further information or to exercise any of your rights as a EEA data subject under the GDPR, please contact us.