Our privacy commitment

InfoChoice Pty Ltd (‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’ and ‘InfoChoice’) is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information. This policy explains how InfoChoice manages the personal information that we collect, use and disclose and how to contact us if you have any further queries about our management of your personal information. This policy does not cover personal information collected or held by InfoChoice or any of its related bodies corporate (as applicable) about its employees.

InfoChoice is bound by the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) which regulate how we may collect, use, disclose and store personal information, and how individuals may access and correct personal information held about them. InfoChoice is also required to comply with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) and the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth).

If you have any questions regarding InfoChoice’s Privacy Policy or would like us to send you a copy of this policy please contact our Privacy Officer using the details provided below. Our Privacy Policy may be amended from time to time. The current version will be posted on our website.

What is personal information?

Personal information is any information or an opinion, in any form and whether true or not, about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable. Examples include an individual's name, address, contact number and email address.

Sensitive information is a special category of personal information. Sensitive information includes health information and information about a person's race, ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of political, professional or trade associations, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual preferences and criminal history.

How does InfoChoice collect and hold your personal information?

InfoChoice will only collect personal information about you by lawful and fair means. InfoChoice collects personal information in a variety of ways. It is InfoChoice’s usual practice to collect personal information directly from you (or from your authorised representative), for example when:

  • you enquire about or seek a quotation for a product or service offered by our participating providers;
  • you apply for or purchase a product offered by an InfoChoice business and/or our participating providers;
  • you contact us by telephone, mail, email or online;
  • you visit our website (including when you request a quote or to be contacted by us);
  • you fill in and submit a form on InfoChoice’s website;
  • we supply any other products or services to you; or
  • you enter into any trade promotions, competitions or other offers with InfoChoice or its partners.

Sometimes we collect personal information about customers or potential customers from a third party or a publicly available source, or from marketing and similar lists legally acquired by us.

If you provide us with personal information about another person (such as a family member), please make sure that you have their consent to do so and that you tell them about this policy.

What kinds of personal information does InfoChoice collect and hold?

The kinds of personal information that we collect and hold about you will depend on the circumstances of collection, including whether we collect the information from you as a customer, participating provider, contractor, supplier, stakeholder, job applicant or in some other capacity.

For example, if you request a quote for a product or service offered by our participating providers, we may collect your name, address, email address, telephone number, date of birth and any other information required to provide you with the quote. If you deal with us in some other capacity (for example, as a participating provider, a supplier or a stakeholder), we may collect your name, contact details and any other information you choose to provide to us.

Any personal information that you provide via our website or contact centre (for example, for comparison purposes, to obtain a quote or to purchase products) is collected and stored by InfoChoice.

To provide some of our services, we may be required to collect and hold your sensitive information. We will only collect sensitive information about you with your consent (unless we are otherwise allowed or required by law to collect that information).

If you provide your personal information to a third party via InfoChoice (for example, to purchase products or services on a third-party website which is linked to InfoChoice) that information is collected and managed by those third parties. You should familiarise yourself with their privacy policy prior to deciding whether you wish to provide them with your information.

We may record and monitor calls that you make to us in certain circumstances. For example, calls to our contact centre are recorded and monitored for training and customer service purposes and to meet our regulatory obligations.

Some of the products offered by our participating providers can cover more than one person (for example, home loans). If you provide us with information about another person, you must obtain that person’s permission to give us the information and inform them of this policy. If we are not able to collect your personal information, we may not be able to provide you with our products or services or do business with you or the organisation with which you are connected.

How does InfoChoice use your personal information?

We use personal information for a variety of reasons including to:

  • provide services and products to our customers;
  • answer your inquiries and deliver customer service;
  • tell our customers and prospective customers about other products, services or promotional offers that we think
    may be of interest to them, including products;
  • refer you to brokers to discuss products or services that may be of interest to you;
  • ensure we comply with the requirements of our participating providers;
  • maintain and improve our customer service;
  • meet our regulatory and legal obligations;
  • manage and resolve any legal or commercial complaints and issues;
  • consider job applicants for current and future employment;
    manage our relationships with our participating providers, suppliers and stakeholders;
  • carry out internal functions, including training; and
  • conduct marketing research and analysis.

We may also use your information for other purposes required or authorised by or under law, including purposes for
which you have provided your consent. That consent may be written, verbal or implied from your conduct.

In what circumstances will InfoChoice disclose your personal information?

In the course of conducting our business and providing our products and services to you, we may disclose your
personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We may disclose your personal information to, where appropriate:

  • if you are a customer, our participating providers (before deciding if you want to provide your personal
    information to any of our participating providers directly or via our website links, you should read their
    privacy policy);
  • a broker who, as a result of our referral, may contact you to discuss their products;
  • professional advisers (such as lawyers or auditors)
  • our contracted service providers, including:
    • information technology service providers;
    • payment systems operators and financial institutions;
    • organisations authorised by InfoChoice to conduct sales, promotional, research or marketing activities;
  • law enforcement agencies or government authorities; and
  • any persons acting on your behalf including those persons nominated by you, executors, trustees and
    legal representatives.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties for other purposes required or authorised by or under law,
including purposes for which you have provided your consent. That consent may be written, verbal or implied from your
conduct.

Property Report

If you request web based property data and information services (Property Report), these Property Reports are developed and provided by Australian Property Monitors Pty Ltd and its related bodies corporate (Pricefinder). InfoChoice may disclose your personal information, including address details, for the purposes of arranging for your address to appear in the search field and for Pricefinder to send or make available the Property Report to you. This disclosure may be to Google, search engine providers and to Pricefinder.

In all circumstances where your personal information is disclosed, we will take all steps reasonable to ensure that these third parties undertake to protect your privacy.

Direct marketing

If you are a customer or a potential customer, we may contact you with information about products and services offered by InfoChoice , as well as our business partners, which we think may be of interest to you. When we contact you it may be by mail, telephone, email, SMS or social media. We will generally give you the opportunity to express a wish not to receive direct marketing communications. Your consent to receive direct marketing communications in the above ways will be deemed to have been given if you do not opt out of receiving direct marketing communications from us, and will remain current for an indefinite period of time unless and until you advise us otherwise. You can opt out of receiving direct marketing at any time (see below).

If you want to know how we obtained your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer using the details provided below and we will let you know unless it is impracticable or unreasonable to do so.

How can you opt out of receiving direct marketing?

If you wish to unsubscribe from future marketing or promotional material, please click the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the marketing email you will have received. On completing the unsubscribe process an onscreen confirmation message will appear.

Does InfoChoice disclose your personal information to overseas recipients?

Some of our service providers, consultants, agents or other organisations that we may disclose your personal information to are or may be located outside Australia.

For example, we may share your information with our third parties in Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, countries within the European Union, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, the UAE, the United States of America, and Vietnam

Your personal information may be stored in a secure and encrypted form overseas (e.g. in data storage and cloud computing facilities operated by us or by third parties on InfoChoice’s behalf).

Use of Government Identifiers

InfoChoice will not use Australian Commonwealth government-related identifiers, such as Medicare numbers, or a driver's licence number, as its own identifier of individuals.

Data quality and Security

We may store your information in hardcopy and/or in electronic form. We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is protected from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

This may include a range of systems and communication security measures, as well as the secure storage of hard copy documents. In addition, access to your personal information will be restricted to those properly authorised to have access.

We rely on the personal information we hold in conducting our business. Therefore, it is very important that the information we hold is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you believe that your personal information is inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, irrelevant or misleading, please contact our Privacy Officer using the details provided below and we will take reasonable steps to correct that information.

Website Usage and Cookies

Our website is professionally hosted and operates in a secure environment. You should however be aware that there is always an inherent risk in transmitting your personal information via the Internet.

We use cookie technology on our website to record the preferences of users and provide information and services to website visitors.

Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to your computer for record-keeping purposes. The information collected may be used by InfoChoice to improve and customize your experience on our website. Cookies are also used to record the preferences of users and optimise the design of our websites. They make navigation easier and increase the user-friendliness of our websites. Personal data can only be saved in cookies if you have given your consent or if it is essential for technical reasons, e.g. to enable a secure login.

Most web browsers accept cookies by default. You can configure your web browser to reject and block cookies. If you decide to delete or block certain cookies, your experience on our website may be limited.

We may utilise third-party cookies on our website. We do not collect personally identifiable information about you. When you visit any of our online resources, our system may certain collect information about your visit for statistical purposes, including:

  • server address;
  • top level domain name (for example .com, .gov, .au, etc.);
  • the date and time of your visit to the site;
  • the pages you accessed and documents downloaded during your visit;
  • the previous site you visited;
  • if you've visited our site before; and
  • the type of browser used.

We record this data to maintain our server and improve our services. There are several methods and packages that we use to collect visitor behaviours on each of our online platforms. Like a number of commercial website operators, InfoChoice uses tools to measure and analyse internet usage across our websites. This enables InfoChoice to track the number of unique browsers to our websites.

We may implement third party tags on our website. Some of the tags that are used on our websites include, but are not limited to, container tags, which include retargeting tags and analytics tags. These tags provide us with aggregated knowledge and information on website behaviour and user preferences.

Whilst links to third party websites are provided on our website, we are not responsible for the content or practices
of these third party websites.

These links are provided for your convenience and do not represent InfoChoice's endorsement of any linked third party website. We recommend that you check the privacy policies of these third parties prior to providing them with your personal information.

How you can access or correct your personal information

You can request access to the personal information we hold about you by contacting our Privacy Officer using the
details provided below. We will generally provide you with access, subject to some exceptions permitted by law.

Access to personal information may be refused in a number of circumstances, such as where:

  • providing access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others;
  • the request is frivolous or vexatious;
  • the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings and would not normally be accessible as part of those proceedings;
  • providing access would be unlawful;
  • denying access is required by law;
  • providing access would be likely to prejudice enforcement related activities conducted by an enforcement body;
  • giving access would reveal evaluative information in connection with a commercially sensitive decision-making process; or
  • giving access would pose a threat to the life, health or safety of any individual or to public health or safety.

If we deny or restrict access to the information you have requested, we will give you written reasons for this decision when we respond to your request. We may charge a fee to cover our costs of providing access to you and will advise you of any fee payable before we provide you with access.

Information Collected for InfoChoice's Credit Report and Score Service

By using the credit report and score service, you confirm to InfoChoice that:

  • you are authorised to provide the requested personal details to InfoChoice; and
  • you are aware of and consent to:
    • the purpose for which your personal information is disclosed by InfoChoice;
    • that personal information provided by you in relation to the credit report and score services will be used by InfoChoice and its third-party service provider for the verification of your identity. This is done by use of an verification request made to its third-party service and (if verified) the provision of a credit report and score; and
    • InfoChoice retaining a record of access to the credit report and score service being initiated by you, and all consents you give to the collection, use and storage of your personal information in relation to the credit report and score service.

Rate Beat Promise Collection Notice

InfoChoice Pty Ltd ABN 93 061 105 735 AFSL and Australian Credit Licence number 349445 of Level 13, 10 Queens Road, Melbourne VIC 3004 (‘we', ‘us' or ‘our') collects personal information about you in order to find you a lower variable interest rate through our website or with one of our partners or broker partners in connection with our Rate Beat Promise. We may disclose personal information about you to such third parties in connection with that purpose.

We also collect personal information about you for purposes otherwise set out in our Privacy Policy at https://www.infochoice.com.au/privacy-policy. The Privacy Policy explains how we will collect, use, store and disclose your personal information, the consequences for you if we do not collect this information, and the way in which you can access and seek correction of your personal information or complain about a breach of the Privacy Act. To obtain further information, you can contact us.

Privacy Collection Notice

InfoChoice Pty Ltd ABN 93 061 105 735 AFSL and Australian Credit Licence number 349445 of Level 13, 10 Queens Road, Melbourne VIC 3004 (‘we', ‘us' or ‘our') collects personal information about you in order to provide you with our services either through our website or with one of our partners or broker partners. We may disclose personal information about you to such third parties in connection with that purpose.

We also collect personal information about you for purposes otherwise set out in our Privacy Policy at https://www.infochoice.com.au/privacy-policy/. The Privacy Policy explains how we will collect, use, store and disclose your personal information, the consequences for you if we do not collect this information, and the way in which you can access and seek correction of your personal information or complain about a breach of the Privacy Act. To obtain further information, you can contact us.

How you can make a privacy complaint

Please contact our Privacy Officer using the details provided below if you have any concerns or complaints about the manner in which we have collected or handled your personal information. We will investigate your complaint and respond to you in writing within 30 days.

If you consider your privacy concerns have not been resolved satisfactorily by us, or you wish to obtain more information on privacy requirements, you can contact the Australian Information Commissioner on 1300 363 992 or visit their website at www.oaic.gov.au.

How to contact us

If you:

  • have queries, concerns or complaints about the manner in which your personal information has been collected or
    handled by InfoChoice;
  • would like to request a hard copy of this privacy policy or discuss any issues relating to this policy or privacy
    matters generally; or
  • would like to request access to or correction of the personal information we hold about you;

Please contact our Privacy Officer:

Privacy Officer
InfoChoice
GPO Box 7001
Brisbane QLD 4000
by email to privacy@infochoice.com.au

Updated 27 April 2023