Privacy Policy - Hotwater.com.au

1. Introduction

GM HOTWATER is committed to protecting the privacy of individuals. GM HOTWATER is bound by the Privacy Principles set out in the Privacy Act 1988 (Commonwealth) (the Act).

GM HOTWATER will only collect, use or disclose personal information in accordance with the Act and this Privacy Policy. GM HOTWATER may amend this Privacy Policy at any time.

In this Privacy Policy, “personal information” has the meaning set out in the Act. Essentially, personal information is information or an opinion about an individual who is reasonably identifiable. It includes, for example, your name together with your contact details.

GM HOTWATER subcontractors are bound by the GM HOTWATER Privacy Policy and all data collected will be used and stored in accordance with this policy.

2. When do we collect personal information?

GM HOTWATER collects personal information in a number of ways. The most common ways are described below.

We may collect your personal information directly from you, when you provide it to us or to our agents or contractors including when you:
- request information, send an enquiry through the GM HOTWATER website or over the phone through our call centre;
- apply for a job at GM HOTWATER; or
- conduct business with us.

We may collect your personal information when you:
- Make an online enquiry or booking;
- Purchase or participate in an energy saving upgrade;
- Contact the call centre to enquire about eligibility or book in work.

We may also collect personal information about you from publicly available sources, from our related companies or from third parties (for example, from referees if you apply for a job with us).

3. What personal information do we collect?

The types of personal information we collect from you will depend on the circumstances in which the information is collected.

GM HOTWATER may collect contact details including your name, address, priority group status, email address and phone numbers.

GM HOTWATER does not require customers to provide any sensitive information. If you do provide sensitive information to us for any reason (for example, if you provide us with information about a disability you have or other health related information), you consent to us collecting that information and to us using and disclosing that information for the purpose for which you disclosed it to us and as permitted by the Act.

4. What do we use personal information for?

The purposes for which we use your personal information will depend on the circumstances in which we collected it.

For example, we may use your personal information so that:

we can do business together;
we can consider you for employment or other relationships; or
you can use our website

We may use or disclose your personal information:

for the purposes for which we collected it (and related purposes which would be reasonably expected by you);
for other purposes to which you have consented; and
as otherwise authorised or required by la

Generally, we will only use and disclose the personal information that we collect about you for purposes connected with our business operations. These purposes may include:

verifying your identity;
contacting you (including via electronic messaging such as SMS and email, by mail, by phone or in any other lawful manner);
providing goods or services to you or receiving goods or services from you;
addressing any issues or complaints that we or you have regarding our relationship;
participating in an energy retailer or Regulator audit; and
developing and improving our business. We may also use your personal information:
to contact you with further information about, and to seek feedback on, our products and

services;

to improve our products and services;
to understand our customer base; and to evaluate GM HOTWATER contractor performance.

5. To whom do we disclose personal information?

We may disclose your personal information to third parties in connection with the purposes described in section 4 of this policy.

This may include disclosing your personal information to the following types of third parties:

GM HOTWATER contractors;
Independent compliance auditors (for verification purposes);
any third parties to whom you have directed us to disclose your personal information (e.g. referees, landlords, carers);
Regulators and Energy Retailers in relation to the Retailer Energy Efficiency Scheme (REES);
our related companies;
our contractors (such as mailing houses, marketing agencies, insurance providers, website and data hosting providers and other IT suppliers) and others persons who perform services for us;
companies who may use your personal information in order to tailor electronic advertising to you (e.g. on a webpage) in relation to our products and services;
our accountants, insurers, lawyers, auditors and other professional advisers;
in the unlikely event that we or our assets may be acquired or considered for acquisition by a third party, that third party and its advisors;
third parties that require the information for law enforcement or to prevent a serious threat to public safety; and
otherwise as permitted or required by la

Where we disclose your personal information to third parties we will use reasonable commercial efforts to ensure that such third parties protect your personal information in a manner consistent with this Privacy Policy.

Some information that you post to parts of our website or to our social media pages may be available to be viewed by the public. You should use discretion is deciding what information you upload to such sites.

6. Does personal information leave Australia?

Some of the parties to whom we disclose personal information may be located outside Australia. For example, we may disclose personal information to our related companies overseas and to our overseas IT service providers.

7. Direct marketing

Direct marketing involves communicating directly with you for the purpose of promoting goods and services to you. Direct marketing can be delivered by a range of methods including mail, telephone, email, SMS or tailored advertising that is visible to you when you view a webpage. We may use and disclose your personal information for the purpose of direct marketing to you where:

you have consented to us doing so; or
it is otherwise permitted by la

You can unsubscribe from our direct marketing by contacting us (see section 13 of this policy).

8. Security

GM HOTWATER will take reasonable steps to keep any personal information we hold about you secure. However, except to the extent liability cannot be excluded due to the operation of statute, we exclude all liability (including in negligence) for the consequences of any unauthorised access to, disclosure of, misuse of or loss or corruption of your personal information. Please notify us immediately if you become aware of any breach of security.

9. Cookies

“Cookies” are small pieces of information sent by a web server to a web browser, which enable the server to collect information from the browser.

GM HOTWATER uses technology such as “cookies” on its website and in emails you have agreed to receive from us. The use of “cookies” is an industry standard, and helps us monitor the effectiveness of our advertising and how visitors use our website so that we can customise and improve our website and services.

The types of information stored by these “cookies” may include your Internet Protocol (IP) address, details of your computer system, browser information, geolocation information, and details of pages visited (and for how long) and website functionality accessed.

Most browsers allow you to turn off the cookie function. If you want to know how to do this please look at the help menu on your web browser. However, certain aspects of our website or particular functionality may not be available or may not perform optimally if you turn off cookies.

Third party vendors, including Google, may show our adverts on sites on the Internet and serve these ads based on a user’s prior visits to our website. We also use analytics data supplied by these vendors to inform and optimise our ad campaigns based on your prior visits to our website.

You may opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page –

click here for information. Additionally, you may opt out of our use of Google Analytics by downloading a browser add-on from Google’s browser add-on page.

For complete information on Google Analytics, please visit this page.

10. Links to other websites

The GM HOTWATER website (and other materials we provide to you) may contain links to third party websites. The operators of those websites may have privacy policies and practices which differ from our own. GM HOTWATER is not responsible for the content of any external website or the privacy practices of any third party.

11. Accessing and updating your personal information

You may seek access to personal information which GM HOTWATER holds about you by contacting us as described in section 13 of this policy. We will provide access to that information in accordance with the Act, subject to certain exemptions which may apply. We may require that the person requesting access provide suitable identification and where permitted by law we may charge an administration fee for granting access to information.

If you become aware that any personal information we hold about you is incorrect or if you wish to update your information, please contact GM HOTWATER as described in section 13 of this policy.

12. Queries, comments and complaints

We welcome your queries or comments about our Privacy Policy and personal information handling practices.

If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about our collection, use or disclosure of personal information, or if you believe that we have not complied with this Privacy Policy or the Act, please contact us (see section 13 of this policy). When contacting us please provide as much detail as possible in relation to your question, concern or complaint.

GM HOTWATER will take any privacy complaint seriously and any complaint will be assessed by an appropriate person with the aim of resolving any issue in a timely and efficient manner. We request that you cooperate with us during this process and provide us with any relevant information that we may need.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of our assessment of your complaint, you may wish to contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (click here for information).