Privacy Policy

This website is owned and operated by Virtuate Pty Ltd ACN 644 078 544 (Virtuate, we, us). We understand your need for security and privacy, and are committed to safeguarding your personal information. We comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) with respect to how we handle personal information.

This privacy policy sets out how we collect, use, disclose and otherwise manage personal information about you.  It also provides information about how you may access your personal data, seek correction of your personal information and make complaints if you think we have breached the APPs and how we deal with such complaints.

What information do we collect?

Personal information generally means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed and it is not possible to connect the data to the individual.

You are not required to provide personal information as a condition of using our website, except as may be necessary to provide you a product or service at your request. If you make an enquiry with us or purchase a product from our website, we may collect the following types of information about you:

  • your name, email address, telephone number and postal address;
  • information relating to your request, including information you input into our website when purchasing products, or completing our online contact form;
  • other information and material you provide to us through our website, or that we reasonably need to collect to administer our business, such as contact and billing information; and
  • data we collect automatically about how you use and interact with our website.

When you use our website, some data may be automatically collected and stored for security and statistical purposes. This data may include the name of your internet service provider, the website that you used to link to our site, the websites that you visit from our site and your IP address. This data could possibly lead to your identification, but we do not use it to do so. We may use the data from time to time for statistical purposes, but maintain the anonymity of each individual user so that the person cannot be identified.

Credit Card Details

Sensitive credit card payment details are never stored on our website or within our internal database system. All payment details are securely transmitted through an encrypted gateway in real time to our PayPal or Stripe accounts, including any refunds that we may process.

We will never request credit card information via email or instant messenger. These forms of communication are not secure enough for transmitting personal financial information. If you receive a request via any form other than on our website or by phone for your credit card information, please notify us immediately via the contact page so we can notify the appropriate authority.

Collection and Processing of Personal Data

Where it is reasonably practicable to do so, we will collect your personal information directly from you. For example, we may collect your personal information through some of the following means:

  • when you enter personal information directly into our website, including through registration for an account, completion of forms, as part of an order for products or services, enquiries or requests about materials being ordered and similar situations in which you have chosen to provide the information to us; and
  • when you communicate with us, such as when you contact us by telephone or email.

In certain cases we may collect personal information from publicly available sources and third parties. You must only provide us with the personal information of someone else if you have that person’s consent to disclose that information to us and for us to use that information in accordance with this privacy policy.

Unsolicited information

If we receive personal information about you that we have not requested, and if we determine that we could not have lawfully collected that information under the Privacy Act if we had requested it, we will destroy or de-identify the information (if it is lawful and reasonable to do so). If we collect your personal information in an unsolicited manner, we will take reasonable steps to inform you of such collection and also how we use, disclose and secure your personal information. Such reasonable steps may include referring you to this privacy policy.

Do I have to provide you with my personal information?

You can deal with us anonymously (without giving us your name and contact details) or by using a pseudonym in some limited circumstances. If you contact us by phone or other means and ask to remain anonymous, you may do so and we will try to answer your request without seeking identifying details. However, if you choose to deal with us anonymously, there are some things we cannot do. For example, we will not be able to enter into an agreement with you to provide you with any of our products or services.

Purpose for handling your personal information

As a general rule, we only process personal information for purposes that would be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances. We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information to:

  • supply you with requested products or services, and administer our dealings with you, including sending you invoices and receipts;
  • communicate with you and provide you with relevant information, including marketing information (unless you have requested not to receive marketing information from us);
  • provide our website and its functionality to you and other users;
  • assess your needs and preferences so that we can refer you to relevant products;
  • improve our product offerings;
  • comply with legal and regulatory obligations; and
  • otherwise manage our business.

We may use your personal information for activities in support of our primary business functions such as processing payments, administration, employment, management, marketing, contracting, IT, legal, and customer support.

Disclosure of personal information to third parties

We may disclose your personal information to the third parties set out below for any of the purposes set out above. The types of third parties with whom we disclose personal information include:

  • our service providers, including providers of marketing and promotional services, accounting, auditing, legal, banking, payment, delivery, data processing, data analysis, and debt collection providers;
  • government agencies for reporting and compliance purposes; and
  • to a third party purchaser of our business, in the event we sell or transfer all or a portion of our business or assets.

Protection of your personal information

We will hold personal information as either secure physical records, electronically on our intranet system, in cloud storage, and in some cases, records on third party servers.

We maintain appropriate physical, procedural and technical security for any personal data you disclose to us to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure or modification of personal information. Where appropriate and commercially reasonable, your personal information will be encrypted in transit to prevent manipulation, loss, destruction or access by unauthorised persons. Our security procedures are continuously revised based on new technological developments.

We further protect personal information by restricting access to personal information to only those who need access to the personal information do their job, and we will destroy or de-identify your personal information once it is no longer needed for a valid purpose or required to be kept by law.

Overseas disclosure

We are based in Australia. We may disclose your personal information to our service providers, some of which may be located overseas. As at the date of this privacy policy, we are likely to disclose your personal information to service providers located in Australia, China, the Philippines and the United States.

By providing your personal data to us, you consent to us disclosing your personal data to any such overseas recipients for purposes necessary or useful in the course of operating our business, and agree that APP 8.1 will not apply to such disclosures. For the avoidance of doubt, in the event that an overseas recipient breaches the APPs, that entity will not be bound by, and you will not be able seek redress under, the Privacy Act.

If you do not want us to disclose your information to overseas recipients, please let us know by contacting us on the details provided at the bottom of this policy.

Direct marketing

Like most businesses, marketing is important to our continued success. We may use your personal information (such as your contact details) to provide you with information and updates about products and services that we consider may be of interest to you.

You may opt out at any time if you no longer wish to receive marketing information from us. You can do this by contacting us on the details below or by using the ‘unsubscribe’ function included in our marketing emails.

Accessing and correcting your personal information

You have the right to request access to the personal information we hold about you, or to make corrections to that information, at any time. We will deal with your request within a reasonable time. If we refuse to grant you access to, or make a correction to, your personal information, we will give you written notice that sets out the reasons for our refusal (unless it would be unreasonable to provide those reasons), including details of the avenues available to you to make a complaint.

Use of cookies

Cookies are small text files that are stored in your local browser cache, computer’s memory or on your hard disk for a pre-defined period of time. We use cookies in order to collect aggregate information on how visitors are experiencing our website. This information assists us to adapt our website to suit individual requirements. While cookies allow a computer to be identified, they do not permit any reference to a specific individual and will not be used to determine the personal identity of the website visitor. Most browsers are set up to accept these cookies automatically. For information on cookie settings on your browser, including how you can deactivate the storing of cookies, please refer to your browser’s manual.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right, at our discretion, to modify or remove portions of this privacy policy at any time. The updated privacy policy will be posted on our website, with the date of the update shown. We do not make any representations about third party websites that may be linked to the web site.

Acceptance of other Terms

To make use of this website you are required to accept and comply by our website Terms, which include important terms, conditions, notices and disclaimers concerning your use of our website.

Resolving personal information concerns

If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about this privacy policy or how we handle your personal information, please contact us via the contact form on our contact page.

We take all complaints seriously, and will respond to your complaint within a reasonable period. You may also lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by telephone: 1300 363 992 or email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au.

This privacy policy was last updated on 23 September 2021.