1 Our commitment

(1) Northside Community Voices Inc. (NCV, we, us) listens to the people of the City of Moreton Bay and tells their representatives what they want. People will only tell us what they think if they can trust us with it. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why, how we use and protect it, and your rights.

(2) We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), whether or not that Act applies to us.

(3) This policy applies to everything NCV does, online and in person, including www.ncvoices.org.au, our email, paper forms, surveys, events and telephone calls.

2 What we collect

2.1 Depending on how you deal with us

(a) Members and Friends of NCV: your name, residential address, email, phone number, your confirmation that you are 16 or over, the other confirmations you gave when joining, your date of admission, and your role in any group.

(b) People who tell us what they think: the issues you raise, your ratings and survey answers, and, if you choose to give them, your suburb, gender and age range.

(c) Volunteers: your availability, the hours you give, training you have completed, and an emergency contact.

(d) People who write to us: your message and your contact details. When you email one of NCV’s addresses, our system records the message against a contact record, creating one if needed.

(e) Donors: your name, contact details and the amount given. Payment card details are handled by our payment provider and are not stored by NCV.

(f) Website visitors: technical information such as your IP address, browser, pages visited and the site you came from, collected through log files, cookies and analytics tools.

2.2 Sensitive information

What you tell us about issues, and how you rate the performance of representatives, may reveal your political opinions. Along with any demographic details you give, we treat this as sensitive information. We collect it only with your consent, use it only for the purposes in clause 4, and never publish it in a way that identifies you.

When you apply to be a Member we ask whether you hold elected office and whether you are a member or employee of a registered political party. We also record it if a Board member, convenor or spokesperson tells us they have become a candidate, or asks NCV to support them as one. We treat these answers as sensitive information. We collect them with your consent, use them only to apply the Constitution and By-laws 4.7 and 4.8, show them only to the Board, the Secretary and our Administrators, and never publish them.

2.3 Children

NCV does not register anyone under 16 and does not knowingly collect personal information about anyone under 16. A young person may share a view without giving any information that identifies them. If we find we hold personal information about someone under 16, we delete it.

3 How we collect it

(1) We collect personal information directly from you, through our website forms, paper forms, surveys, email, telephone and at events. We collect it lawfully and fairly, and only what we reasonably need.

(2) Where a volunteer types up a paper form you completed, they enter what you wrote, and the record shows it came from paper.

(3) You do not have to give us your personal information, and you can browse our website without an account. If you choose not to give it, we may not be able to register you, contact you or count your views as a Member’s.

4 How we use it

4.1 Purposes

We use personal information to—

(a) keep the register of Members that the law and our Constitution require, and manage Friend of NCV registrations;

(b) give Members notice of general meetings, and run elections and votes;

(c) record, analyse and report what the community tells us;

(d) keep in touch with you, if you have agreed to that (clause 5);

(e) organise volunteers, events and groups, and keep people safe at them;

(f) process and acknowledge donations;

(g) answer enquiries and deal with complaints;

(h) protect our systems and prevent misuse; and

(i) meet our legal obligations.

4.2 What we publish

(1) We combine what many people tell us and publish the results, for example in Findings Reports and in what we send to elected representatives. Published results never name you, and we do not publish figures for a group so small that a person could be identified.

(2) We may share de-identified results and our methods with other community groups doing similar work.

4.3 What we never do

(1) We never sell, rent or trade your personal information.

(2) We never give your personal information to a political party, a candidate or a campaign, unless you have expressly agreed. If a candidate NCV supports wants to contact Members in their electorate, we ask those Members first and pass on only the details of those who say yes, recording each consent.

(3) We do not use your personal information for any purpose you would not reasonably expect, unless you agree or the law requires it.

5 Keeping in touch

(1) We ask for one consent to keep in touch, covering our newsletter, invitations to have your say, notices of events near you, and updates from any group you join. There is one list and one way to unsubscribe, which stops all of it. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails or by writing to us.

(2) We record that you agreed, when, how, and the exact wording you were shown. We never assume consent from silence, from an unclear reply, or from holding your details for another reason.

(3) Members who unsubscribe will still receive notices of general meetings, because the Constitution requires them.

6 How we store and protect it

(1) Personal information is held in NCV’s contact database, our email system and, for paper forms, in secure storage kept by the Secretary. Access is limited to people who need it for their role, and each person has their own login.

(2) We take reasonable steps to keep personal information accurate and up to date, and to protect it from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, change or disclosure.

(3) Our website and database are hosted for NCV by our platform provider, CORE Australia, on cloud services. [Confirm with CORE: whether any data is stored or processed outside Australia and, if so, where.] Where information is held outside Australia, we take reasonable steps to ensure it is protected to the standard of the Australian Privacy Principles.

(4) We will never ask for your password.

7 How long we keep it

(1) The law and our Constitution require us to keep the register of Members, including the dates membership began and ended, and the minutes of our meetings. We also keep the record of each consent to correspondence, so that we can show what each person agreed to. These records are kept after a membership ends.

(2) Other personal information is kept while it is needed for the purposes in clause 4. After that, it is de-identified or deleted.

(3) If you ask us to delete your personal information, we will do so, except for what subclause (1) or another law requires us to keep. The views you have shared are then kept only in a form that no longer identifies you.

(4) Within these limits, NCV marks records as ended or retired rather than deleting them, so that the history of what was decided remains accurate.

8 Seeing and correcting your information

(1) You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, or to correct it, by writing to [email protected]. Members can also update many details themselves through their account.

(2) We may ask you to confirm your identity. We will respond within 30 days. If we refuse access, we will tell you why in writing.

(3) Members may also inspect the register of Members, as the Constitution allows. A Member who believes that showing their address would put them at risk can ask the Board to withhold it.

9 If something goes wrong

(1) If we become aware that personal information has been accessed or disclosed without authority, or lost, we will act promptly to contain it and assess the harm.

(2) If it is likely to cause serious harm, we will tell the people affected, what happened and what we are doing about it, and notify the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner where the law requires.

10 Questions and complaints

(1) Please send any question or complaint about privacy to [email protected]. We will acknowledge it within 7 days and handle it under our Complaints Policy.

(2) If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au.

11 Changes to this policy

The Board may change this policy by resolution. A change takes effect on the day the Board sets, and not before the new version is published. Earlier versions are kept in NCV’s Governance Register.