Vulcan's Privacy and Credit Reporting Policy
Privacy and Credit Reporting Policy for Vulcan Steel (Australia) Pty Limited
Last updated 1 February 2024
Vulcan Steel (Australia) Pty Limited (ABN 61 100 061 283) (Vulcan, we, us) is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected.
In handling your personal informaiton, Vulcan will comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) including the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). Vulcan also complies with Australian law when handling of credit information, principally the Privacy Act and the Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2014 (Version 2) (CR Code).
This Policy is both a privacy policy and a credit reporting policy and:
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- explains what personal information Vulcan may collect from you, the purpose of collecting this information, how Vulcan will use and protect this information, and your rights of access to the information. Personal information is any information (including an opinion) that Vulcan holds about you which identifies you or from which you are reasonably identifiable; and
- covers additional information on how Vulcan manages any credit information collected in connection with your credit application or credit facility. Credit information is personal information that has a bearing on credit that has been provided to you or that you have applied for. This includes credit for personal, domestic or household purposes and credit in connection with a business.
Depending on the ways in which you interact with Vulcan, Vulcan may collect certain personal information from you, including your:
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- name;
- date of birth;
- contact information, such as your email address, telephone numbers and residential and/or business address;
- financial details such as your tax file number;
- credit information, such as details relating to credit history, credit capacity, and eligibility for credit (credit worthiness) (see below); and
- systems traffic information, such as time and/or duration of your interaction with Vulcan.
When Vulcan checks your credit worthiness, and at other times, Vulcan might collect information about you and give it to credit reporting bodies (see below). This information can include:
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- ID information, such as your name, postal or email address, telephone numbers, date of birth, gender, current or last known address and previous two addresses, name of current or last known employer and driver’s license number;
- a record of a lender asking a credit reporting body for information in relation to a credit application, including the type and amount of credit applied for;
- a record of your consumer credit payments being overdue. Consumer credit is credit that is intended to be used wholly or primarily for personal, family or household purposes; or to acquire, maintain, renovate or improve residential property for investment purposes or to refinance credit for any of these purposes;
- a record of when a lender reasonably believes that there has been a fraud relating to your consumer credit or that you have avoided paying your consumer credit payments and the credit provider can’t find you;
- a record relating to your bankruptcy or your entry into a debt agreement or personal insolvency agreement;
- an Australian court judgment relating to your credit;
- a record relating to your activities in Australia and your credit worthiness;
- certain details relating to your consumer credit, such as the name of the credit provider, whether the credit provider has an Australian Credit License, the type of consumer credit, the day on which the consumer credit was entered into and terminated, the maximum amount of credit available and certain repayment terms and conditions;
- a record of whether or not you’ve made monthly consumer credit payments and when they were paid. Consumer credit liability information and repayment history information;
- if a lender gave a credit reporting body default information about you and the overdue amount is paid, a statement that the payment has been made; and
- a lender gave credit reporting body default information about you and your consumer credit contract is varied or replaced, a statement about this.
Information that Vulcan obtains from a credit reporting body or information Vulcan derives from such information is known as “credit eligibility information”.
Unless it is unreasonable or impracticable, Vulcan will try to collect personal information directly from you. Information may be collected from you when you:
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- fill out a Credit Application Form, Personal Guarantee or any other form with us (whether online or otherwise);
- contact Vulcan, including via email, telephone or social media;
- use Vulcan’s websites; or
- visit a Vulcan branch.
Please note that Vulcan may also collect your details if you start but do not submit an online application, including to contact you to offer to help you complete it. This unsubmitted on-line application information will only be kept temporarily then deleted if the application is not completed after a certain period.
Sometimes it may be necessary for Vulcan to collect information about you from other sources, including where:
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- Vulcan cannot get hold of you, and it relies on publicly available information to update your contact details;
- Vulcan checks the security you are offering through public registers and external service providers; and
- at your request, Vulcan may exchange information with your legal or financial advisers or other representatives.
You can choose to deal with us anonymously, however, if you do not provide your personal information to us, Vulcan may not be able to:
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- provide you with the product, service or facilities you want;
- manage or administer your account or service;
- verify your identity or protect against fraud; or
- let you know about other products or services from across the Vulcan range that might better meet your needs.
Vulcan will collect your credit information from details included in your Credit Application Form. Sometimes it may be necessary for Vulcan to collect credit information from other sources, including:
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- credit reporting bodies;
- other credit providers;
- your co-applicants;
- your guarantors/proposed guarantors;
- your accountant or other referees;
- your agents and other representatives, such as your referrers, brokers, solicitors, conveyancers, and settlement agents;
- organisations that help process credit applications;
- organisations that check the security you are offering, such as valuers;
- organisations providing insurance; and
- external service providers involved in helping Vulcan to provide credit or to administer credit facilities, including debt collectors and legal advisers.
Vulcan uses cookies on our websites for various purposes, including to provide you with a better and more effective website experience.
A “cookie” is a small text file placed on your computer by a webpage server which may later be retrieved by webpage servers. In common with most other websites, Vulcan’s websites use cookies to assign a unique identifier to a computer, which can be used to associate requests made to the website by that computer. Cookies do not allow Vulcan to collect personally identifiable information about you, but are used:
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- to allocate an identification number to your Internet browser (you cannot be identified from this number);
- to track and report on website performance;
- to determine if you have previously visited the website and identify other pages or third parties’ websites you have accessed; and
- for security
If you wish, you can generally configure your browser settings so that it does not receive cookies, but if you do so some of the functionalities of Vulcan’s websites and services may not be available.
Vulcan stores information in different ways, including in paper and electronic form. The security of your personal information is important, and Vulcan takes reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. Some of the ways Vulcan does this are:
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- confidentiality requirements of Vulcan employees;
- document storage security policies;
- implementing security measures for Vulcan’s systems, including firewalls, data encryption on Vulcan’s websites and only giving access to personal information to verified personnel; and
- control of access to Vulcan buildings.
Vulcan can store personal information physically or electronically with third party data storage providers. Where Vulcan does this, it uses contractual arrangements to ensure those providers take appropriate measures to protect that information and restrict the uses to which they can put that information.
Vulcan will only keep your information for as long as it is required for Vulcan’s purposes. When Vulcan no longer requires your information, Vulcan will ensure that it is destroyed or de-identified.
Collecting your personal information allows Vulcan to provide you with a range of products and services. This involves Vulcan using your information to:
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- process credit application(s) and credit checks;
- identifying you or verifying your authority to act on behalf of a customer;
- process quotes, orders, exchanges and refunds of Vulcan products and services;
- provide you with information about existing and/or new Vulcan products and services and other marketing activities;
- maintaining our supplier/customer relationship, including answering your queries, requests and complaints;
- taking any required debt recovery or legal action in relation to your account; and
- compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.
If you no longer wish to receive Vulcan’s direct marketing offers, you may unsubscribe at any time by contacting us via the contact details listed in section 12 below. Vulcan will process your request as soon as practicable.
In addition to the ways for using personal information mentioned above, Vulcan may also use your credit information to:
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- enable a credit insurer to assess the risk of providing insurance to Vulcan or to address Vulcan’s contractual arrangements with the insurer;
- assess whether to accept a guarantor or the risk of a guarantor being unable to meet their obligations;
- consider payment arrangements relating to any outstanding accounts; and
- assess whether to register a security interest.
To make sure Vulcan can meet your specific needs and for the purposes described above, Vulcan may share your information with:
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- third party organisations (listed below);
- other entities within the Vulcan Group;
- your representative or any person acting on your behalf (for example, financial advisers, lawyers, accountants, administrators, trustees, guardians, brokers or auditors); and
- personal referees (to confirm details about you).
Vulcan may disclose your personal information to third parties, including:
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- organisations involved in debt collecting, including purchasers of debt;
- fraud reporting agencies (including organisations that assist with fraud investigations and organisations established to identify, investigate and/or prevent any fraud, suspected fraud, crime, suspected crime, or misconduct of a serious nature);
- government or regulatory bodies (including ASIC and the Australian Tax Office) as required or authorised by law (in some instances these bodies may share it with relevant foreign authorities);
- our accountants, auditors or lawyers and other external advisers;
- guarantors and prospective guarantors of your account; and
- organisations that maintain, review and develop our business systems, procedures and technology infrastructure, including testing or upgrading our computer systems.
Vulcan may store your information in cloud or other types of networked or electronic storage, which may be in countries outside of Australia, such as the United Kingdom, United States of America, Greece and other countries in the European Economic Area. Vulcan will not send your personal information outside Australia unless Vulcan is satisfied that the overseas recipient of the information handles your personal information in accordance with the APPs, or you have consented to the transfer of the information. Overseas organisations may be required to disclose information that Vulcan shares with them under a foreign law. In those instances, Vulcan will not be responsible for that disclosure.
Vulcan may disclose information about you to a credit reporting body if you:
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- are applying for credit;
- have obtained credit from Vulcan;
- guarantee or are considering guaranteeing the obligations of another person; or
- are a director of a company that is a credit applicant or guarantor.
When Vulcan gives your information to a credit reporting body, it may be included in reports that the credit reporting body gives other organisations (such as other credit providers) to help them assess your credit worthiness.
Vulcan will not share any of your credit information with a credit reporting body unless it has a business operation in Australia. Vulcan is not likely to share credit eligibility information (that is, credit information it obtains about you from a credit reporting body or that Vulcan derives from credit information) with organisations unless they have business operations in Australia.
If you fail to meet your payment obligations in relation to consumer credit or commit a serious credit infringement, we may be entitled to inform the credit reporting body of this matter.
The credit reporting bod(ies) we deal with are 1Centre and Equifax. For contact details and information on how those credit reporting bodies manage credit-related personal information, please see their privacy policies available at the following links:
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- 1Centre – https://www.1centre.com/privacy-policy
- Equifax – https://www.equifax.com.au/privacy
To the extent permitted by law, Vulcan will always give you access to your personal information, including for the purpose of correcting or updating that information, unless there is an exception to such disclosure which applies under the APPs. If you would like to access or correct your personal information, please contact Vulcan via the contact details listed in section 12 below.
If Vulcan is unable to give you access to any personal or credit information, Vulcan will tell you why in writing.
Vulcan will take reasonable steps to correct your personal information within 30 days from when you made your request, or any longer period that has been agreed with you. If you are worried that Vulcan has given incorrect information to others, Vulcan may be able to tell the third party about the correction.
If Vulcan is unable to correct your information, or inform a third party about the correction, Vulcan will explain why in writing within five business days of making this decision. If you are not satisfied with our response or have any further concerns, you can make a complaint to Vulcan or make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) using their contact details below.
Where you request access to credit information about you that Vulcan has obtained from credit reporting bodies (or based on that information), you have the following additional rights. Vulcan must:
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- provide you access to the information within 30 days (unless unusual circumstances apply);
- make the information clear and accessible; and
- ask you to check with credit reporting bodies what information they hold about you.
Vulcan reserves the right to review and amend this Policy at any time and the latest version will be posted on Vulcan’s website.
Please contact Vulcan if you have any questions, comments or complaints about this Policy.
Email: accounts.aus@vulcan.co
Post: The Privacy Officer, P O Box 7056, Dandenong VIC 3175
Phone: 03 8792 9699
If you are concerned about how your personal or credit information is being handled or wish to make a complaint about an alleged breach of the Privacy Act or CR Code, please contact Vulcan using the details listed above. Vulcan will endeavour to respond as soon as practical upon receiving written notice of your complaint. If you are not satisfied with Vulcan’s response, there are other bodies you can go to:
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority can consider most complaints about your credit information. They can be contacted at:
Website: www.afca.org.au
Post: GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001
Phone: 1800 931 678
Under the Privacy Act, you may complain to the OAIC about the way Vulcan handles your personal information or credit information. The Commissioner can be contacted at:
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Website: www.oaic.gov.au
Post: GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001
Phone: 1300 363 992
APPs – means Australian Privacy Principles
ASIC – means Australian Securities and Investment Commission
Cookie – is a small text file placed on your computer by a webpage server which may later be retrieved by webpage servers
CR Code – means Privacy (Credit Reporting) Code 2014 (Version 2)
Consumer credit – means credit that is intended to be used wholly or primarily for personal, family or household purposes; or to acquire, maintain, renovate or improve residential property for investment purposes or to refinance credit for any of these purposes
Credit eligibility information – means information that Vulcan obtains from a credit reporting body or information Vulcan derives from such information
Credit information – means Personal Information that has a bearing on credit that has been provided to you or that you have applied for. This includes credit for personal, domestic or household purposes and credit in connection with a business.
Credit worthiness – means credit information, such as details relating to credit history, credit capacity, and eligibility for credit
OAIC – means Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
Personal information – means any information (including an opinion) that Vulcan holds about you which identifies you or from which you are reasonably identifiable, and covers additional information on how Vulcan manages any credit information collected in connection with your credit application or credit facility.
Privacy Act – means Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)
Vulcan, we, us – means Vulcan Steel (Australia) Pty Limited (ABN 61 100 061 283)