Introduction
This privacy policy sets out the information handling practices for the Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia (PESA) including our website. It does not cover personal information about our employees or contractors. We strive to manage personal information in a best practice way while enabling us to better serve our membership. Personal information means information or an opinion, true or false and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an identified or reasonably identifiable individual.
Overview
Our primary goals are to:
- promote professional and technical excellence in the upstream petroleum industry throughout Australia. This is fostered by providing forums to communicate technical innovations and lessons learnt to individuals on a national basis;
- present views and facilitate discussion of technical and professional matters pertinent to the upstream petroleum industry;
- foster and provide continuing education for the benefit of PESA members and students progressing towards a career choice;
- nurture the spirit of research on matters pertinent to PESA members and their upstream petroleum industry colleagues; and
- maintain a high standard of professional conduct on the part of its members.
The functions and activities we carry out to achieve these goals, and for which we collect and hold personal information include:
- Managing the membership of PESA
- Conducting educational and training courses
- Holding events such as technical lunches, conferences and training on relevant issues
- Providing and exchanging information through various channels such as PESA News, social media sites and our website
- Lobbying and making submissions to government and others with regards to our industry and the members we serve.
- Carrying out a range of research, data collection and analytic activities to identify member and prospective members’ needs and ensure our products and services meet those needs
- Identify prospective members and provide marketing approaches designed to recruit new members
- To provide up-to-date information to support lobbing activity and make submissions on issues and proposed laws
- Entering into relationships with sponsors and other partners to financially support PESA activities.
Collection of Personal Information
Membership
We collect and hold information from members or prospective members through membership related applications. This information includes name and contact details, gender and career history. We also collect date of birth to enable us to uniquely identify members and to assess what products and services may be most suitable and of interest for members. We protect date of birth information by strictly limiting PESA staff access to this information.
We keep information that prospective members have entered when they start, but do not complete, an online membership application form to enable us to contact them about becoming a member.
For ongoing membership management, we collect information from members about the reasons for reducing the level of membership such as proof of ill health, parenthood, study or travel. For upgrading membership we collect (with consent), criminal history, director status, evidence of bankruptcy and referee comments.
Education and training
We collect and hold enrollment information from members and non-members.
Events
We collect and hold information members and non-members provide through applications to attend events such as conferences and technical lunches. We keep a record of the events and workshops a member or non-member has attended.
Payment Information / Credit Card Details
We do not store your credit card information on our website. Your credit card details, such as credit card number, expiry dates, etc are collected and securely stored by our payment gateway provider, Stripe. You can view their policy on data collection here.
In order to facilitate recurring payments of membership subscriptions, we pass one or more encrypted reference tokens to Stripe. This allows us to support automatic renewals without storing any credit card information.
Indirect Collection
Members
We collect information indirectly about members, but only in circumstances where a member would reasonably expect it, or where the member has consented. Examples include referee comments and criminal history checks for some membership related applications.
Non-members
To expand our membership we collect information indirectly about prospective members through methods which include word of mouth referral, publicly available sources such as the Australian Stock Exchange Register, and through commercial list brokers. Research We commission market research about members and non-members.
Notice Where You Give Us Information About Third Parties
If you give us personal information about any other individuals (e.g. guests attending a conference or other event) we ask that you tell the individual that you have done so and make them aware of this Privacy Policy.
Uses of Personal Information
We use information we collect and hold through membership, educational and training course and event applications or attendance to:
- Administer and meet member requirements for the particular service, course event or program.
- Help us improve the particular service, event or program.
- Identify and analyse member and non-member activities and interests in order to better meet member needs and attract new members.
- Enable us to target marketing communications to members and non-members.
We will not use your personal information for any purpose which you would not reasonably expect unless it is consistent with the Privacy Act. If we think a member may not expect a particular use of information we hold about them, we ask for consent before we use it for that purpose. For example, we ask for your specific consent to allow us to use aggregated data from a self-assessment tool you complete to enable us to assess the overall level of directorship skills among our membership.
Marketing Communications
We send marketing material to members and non-members about whom we have records in order to give you information about the products and services that PESA provides that will be of personal and/or professional benefit. These products or services may extend beyond those provided by PESA and include special offers from third parties.
Disclosure (Sharing) of Personal Information
Sensitive information
We only disclose sensitive personal information such as health information or criminal history for the purposes for which you gave it to us or for directly related purposes you would reasonably expect.
Publications
We disclose information about members to other members via PESA News publication – for example, about new members or events and education.
Contractors and Partners
We disclose personal information to contracted service providers who assist us with a number of our functions and services including service providers of technology, data processing, contact centre, legal, accounting, business consulting, auditing, archival, delivery, banking, payments, market research, content production and mailing but only for the purpose of fulfilling those services. We disclose information to partners in some of our programs, for example, about applicants for scholarships to assist us with scholarship candidate assessment.
Where Authorised or Required by Law
As authorised by the Privacy Act we disclose personal information in connection with law enforcement activities by enforcement bodies, for example, Australian Securities and Investments Commission investigations or other investigations into suspected fraud or unlawful activity.
We are required by the Corporations Act 2001 to allow an individual to inspect the PESA member register and view current and past members’ names and addresses and details of their shareholding in PESA. However, the Corporation Act prohibits the individual from using the information gained to contact or send material to members, and from using it for other prescribed purposes.
Our Website, Emails and Social Media
If you send us an email, that address will be recorded automatically by our e-mail messaging system for the purpose of replying to your e-mail. However for normal communication with you we will use the e-mail address you provide in your membership application/renewal, unless you ask us to use a different e-mail address.
When we send you emails or other electronic messages, we record information about your interactions with the email including when and where you open the message and click on particular links. This helps us to better understand what information is of interest to you and to improve the content.
Website
This section applies to our website under the domain name pesa.com.au
We use Google Analytics to collect a range of information about your interactions with our website. Google Analytics collects the information using a number of techniques including cookies and Java Script.
The information we collect includes IP address, domain name, date and time of visit, the pages visited and time spent on each page, whether you have visited the site before and what site referred the visitor to the web page. We use this information to evaluate the effectiveness of our website and the level of interest in particular pages or PESA campaigns.
Information about how Google handles personal information is available at http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/policies/privacy/. You can opt out of the collection of information via Google Analytics by downloading the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
Our website may contain links to other sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or policies of those sites and we suggest that you review their privacy policies.
Mobile Applications
When individual members access our mobile application via their mobile device, our web development firm collects username details in order to authenticate access to member-only content. We do not review or use this information for any purpose beyond authentication with our membership database. We also do not collect or track information about the pages individual members view. App usage statistics (e.g. page views and time on page) are analysed on an aggregate basis only using online analytics made available by our app’s software provider.
Social Media
We participate in social media such as our LinkedIn group, or Twitter. If we think it is relevant to the quality of service that PESA provides or its objectives, we sometimes record the nature of the topic discussed by a particular individual and their name and follow up with further conversation offline about which we take notes. Social media services also handle your personal information for their own purposes. These sites have their own privacy policies.
Security of Personal Information
We regularly assess the risks of misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure of personal information and ensure that we have adequate measures, including policies, procedures and technology, to address those risks. For example, we limit staff access to personal information to that which they need to carry out their role. We conduct regular internal and external audits to assess whether we have adequately complied with or implemented these measures.
Retention of Information
We hold most information about members and non-members for 7 years. We destroy applications for the mentoring program after 2 years.
Access to and the Accuracy of Personal Information
You have a right to ask for access to the personal information we hold about you. Unless there is a lawful reason not to, we will give you access to it and allow you to correct any wrong information. We will ask you to verify your identity to ensure we don’t give information to the wrong person. If we don’t give you access to your personal information or refuse to correct it we will tell why. You may ask us to make a note of your requested correction to be located alongside information we have not agreed to correct.
Requests for Access and Complaint Resolution Mechanism
In the event that you have a question, concern or complaint regarding the way in which we handle your personal information, you should contact our Federal President direct at: president@pesa.com.au
We take your privacy concerns seriously. Where you express any concerns that we have interfered with your privacy, or seek access to information about you that we hold, we will respond within 48 hours to let you know who will be handling your matter and when you can expect a further response.
If you are unsatisfied with our response you can complain to the Office of the Information Commissioner Telephone: 1300 363 992. Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Suggestions for improving this Policy We will amend this policy from time to time and notify you of any amendments through our publications and by posting an updated version on our website www.pesa.com.au. Suggestions about improving this policy are welcome. Please contact us on president@pesa.com.au should you wish to provide feedback.