Privacy Policy

The Humanist Society of Victoria Inc. respects and protects your privacy.

• Personal Information
• Data Collected via Technology
• Data Collected by Third Parties
• Use of Information
• Disclosure
• Security
• Cookies
• Access to Information
• Links to Other Sites
• Problems or Questions
• Further Privacy Information

This website at https://vichumanist.org.au/ is owned and operated by Humanist Society of Victoria Inc. Humanist Society of Victoria Inc. will be referred to as “we”, “our” and “us” in this Privacy Policy. For contact information, please refer to the contact page at https://vichumanist.org.au/contact-us/. By using this website (the “Site”), you agree to the Privacy Policy of this Site, which is set out on this website page. The Privacy Policy relates to the collection and use of personal information you may supply to us through your conduct on the Site, through browsing the Site, subscribing to our newsletter, applying for membership, making a donation and submitting user-generated content on our blog, comment forms and forums.

We reserve the right, at our discretion, to modify or remove portions of this Privacy Policy at any time. This Privacy Policy is in addition to any other terms and conditions applicable to the Site. Refer to our Terms of Service available at https://vichumanist.org.au/policies/tos/ for more information. We do not make any representations about third party websites that may be linked to the Site.

We recognise the importance of protecting the privacy of information collected about visitors to the Site, in particular, information that is capable of identifying an individual (“personal information”). This Privacy Policy governs the manner in which your personal information, obtained through the Site, will be dealt with. This Privacy Policy should be reviewed periodically so that you are updated on any changes. We welcome your comments and feedback.

Personal Information

Personal information about visitors to the Site is collected only when knowingly and voluntarily submitted by the visitor. We collect such personal information when visitors complete our online e-newsletter subscription form, our membership form, our contact form or make a donation so that we can provide requested services and to answer or forward any requests or enquiries. We do not give our e-newsletter subscription list, or any part of it, to any third party without your prior consent.

We may also require visitors to the Site to register their personal details before allowing the posting of comments using our comment forms and on our forums. Visitors who voluntarily add personal information and non-personal information to their profile during the registration process, or at a later date, authorize for this information to be made public and do so at their sole discretion and risk. Visitors who add, create, upload, submit, distribute or post content, blogs, blog comments, article comments, forum postings, data, text, photographs, graphics, or other information to the Site also authorize for this information to be made public and do so at their sole discretion and risk. Blogs, comment sections and forums offered on the Site are for public and not private communications. Humanist Society of Victoria Inc. cannot guarantee the security of any information visitors disclose through any of the comment areas and public forums available on the Site.

Names of members who have made donations or bequests are acknowledged in the Victorian Humanist newsletter and on the Site, unless you request to remain anonymous.

It is our intention that this policy will protect your personal information from being dealt with in any way that is inconsistent with applicable privacy laws in Australia.

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Data Collected via Technology

Our web host’s server collects information through technology in log files to make the Site more useful for visitors. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in a most user-friendly manner and to continually improve the Site to better meet the needs of our members, prospective members, newsletter subscribers and visitors.

The data collected in our web host server’s log files include your computer’s IP (Internet Protocol) address, browser type, referring/exit web pages and computer operating system type. This information does not identify you personally. We use this data from time to time to compile aggregate statistics, monitor trends and track site usage. We also use the information to make sure our technology is compatible with that of our visitors. We are then better able to offer content and services that match our visitors’ needs.

We also use third-party website analytics services to track visits to the Site. We use Google Analytics and StatCounter to help us understand how visitors engage with our site so that we can continually improve it. Google Analytics and StatCounter report website trends without recording information that will personally identify an individual visitor. Refer to the Google Analytics Privacy Policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy and the StatCounter Privacy Policy at https://statcounter.com/about/legal/ for more information.

Data Collected by Third Parties

E-newsletter subscriber data is hosted by our authorized third-party agent, Mailchimp. Mailchimp has its own privacy policy and by using the online e-newsletter subscriber form you will be providing your information to Mailchimp subject to Mailchimp’s privacy policy. For more information, refer to Mailchimp’s privacy policy at https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/. If you no longer wish to be an e-newsletter subscriber or wish to correct or update you subscriber details, use the links at the bottom of the e-newsletter or contact Humanist Society of Victoria Inc. directly.

We do not collect financial information, such as bank account and credit/debit card numbers. Online membership and donation forms that take payment are hosted by our authorized third-party agents, Stripe and TidyHQ. Data collected from online forms include, but is not limited to, first and last name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone numbers and gender.

TidyHQ has its own privacy policy and by using an online membership form you will be providing your information to TidyHQ subject to TidyHQ’s privacy policy. For more information, refer to TidyHQ’s privacy policy. In addition, Stripe has its own privacy policy and by using an online payment facility you will be providing your information to Stripe subject to Stripe’s privacy policy. For more information, refer to Stripe’s privacy policy.

We provide social media sharing buttons that may access your personal data via third party APIs when you are logged in to your social media account(s). Third party social media sites have their own privacy policies. Refer to the privacy policies of these sites for more information.

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Use of Information

Personal information that visitors submit to the Site is used only for the purpose for which it is submitted or for such other secondary purposes that are related to the primary purpose, unless we disclose other uses in this Privacy Policy or at the time of collection. Copies of correspondence sent from the Site, that may contain personal information, are stored as archives for record-keeping and back-up purposes only.

Disclosure

Apart from where you have consented or disclosure is necessary to achieve the purpose for which it was submitted, personal information may be disclosed in special situations where we have reason to believe that doing so is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against anyone damaging, injuring, or interfering (intentionally or unintentionally) with our rights or property, users, or anyone else who could be harmed by such activities. Also, we may disclose personal information when we believe in good faith that the law requires disclosure.

We may engage third parties to provide you with goods or services on our behalf. In that circumstance, we may disclose your personal information to those third parties in order to meet your request for goods or services.

Security

We strive to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of personal information submitted to the Site, and 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.

However, we will endeavour to take all reasonable steps to protect the personal information you may transmit to us or from our online services. Once we do receive your transmission, we will also make our best efforts to ensure its security on our systems.

In addition, our contractors, suppliers and representatives are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by us. However, we will not be held responsible for events arising from unauthorised access to your personal information.

Cookies

Cookies are data that a website transfers to an individual’s hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Cookies, which are industry standard and are used by most websites, including our own, can facilitate a user’s ongoing access to and use of a site. They allow us to customise the Site to your needs. If you do not want information collected through the use of Cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to deny or accept the Cookie feature. However, you should note that Cookies may be necessary to provide you with some features of our online services.

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Access to Information

We will endeavour to take all reasonable steps to keep secure any information that we hold about you and to keep this information accurate and up to date. If, at any time, you discover that information held about you is incorrect, you may contact us to have the information corrected. In addition, our contractors, suppliers and representatives are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by us.

Links to Other Sites

We provide links to websites outside of the Site, as well as to third party websites. These linked sites are not under our control, and we cannot accept responsibility for the conduct of companies linked to the Site. Before disclosing your personal information on any other website, we advise you to examine the terms and conditions of using that website and its privacy statement.

Problems or Questions

If we become aware of any ongoing concerns or problems with the Site, we will take these issues seriously and work to address these concerns. If you have any further queries relating to our Privacy Policy, or you have a problem or complaint, please contact us.

Further Privacy Information

For more information about privacy issues in Australia and protecting your privacy, visit the website of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy-law/.

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version 1.1
21 Apr 2019 Initial Release
22 Aug 2019 Minor addition to Personal Information