APATA (The Australian Performing Arts Teachers Association Pty Ltd) ABN 30 162 404 015 (we, us, our, or APATA) recognises and values the protection of your privacy. We also understand that you want clarity about how we manage personal information that you provide us. We have implemented this ‘Privacy Policy’ to comply with the requirements of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles set out in the Privacy Act. This Privacy Policy sets out our approach to ensure you are informed about how we collect, hold, use your personal information and under what circumstances we may disclose your personal information. The Privacy Policy also outlines your rights to gain access to, and seek corrections of, your personal information that we hold. Finally, the Privacy Policy provides information about how you can approach us about your privacy-related concerns and complaints, and how we will manage such communications.

Through this Privacy Policy we have aimed to be as clear, open and transparent as possible about these matters, but if you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us at hello@apata.com.au

Personal Information and Sensitive Information

Personal information is defined in the Privacy Act as:

• Information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable:
  1. Whether the information or opinion is true or not; and
  2. Whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not.
  3. ‘Sensitive Information’ includes things such as race, sexual orientation, political opinions, members of a trade association or trade union, criminal record or health information.

Information We Request from You

When you sign up to become an APATA (The Australian Performing Arts Teachers Association Pty Ltd) Member via our website, which is located at www.apata.com.au (the Website), we will usually only ask for the following information:

• First name
• Surname
• Residential or professional address
• Telephone number
• Email address
• Professional profile information
• Details relating to employment or professional positions held

We may ask you to nominate a User Name, a Display Name and a Password. We will not collect personal information (other than Sensitive Information) unless the information is reasonably necessary to establish an account for you and provide our services to you.

From time to time, we may ask you to supply additional personal information for specific purposes. In such cases, we will clearly explain why we request that information and unless we are required or authorised by law to request that information from you, providing such information to us is optional. Under no circumstances will we request any information from you that may disclose your:

• Political, religious or philosophical beliefs or affiliations
• Health and sexuality
• Racial or ethnic origin; or
• Criminal convictions

We may conduct surveys or market research and may seek other information from you on a periodic basis. These surveys will provide us with information that allows improvement in the types and quality of services offered to you, and the manner in which those services are offered to you. Participation in such activities is optional. We generally will only collect personal information about you if you voluntarily submit it to us by:

• Providing your information by form or telephone
• Creating an account with us
• Sending us an email
• Sending us information via the ‘Contact Us’ page on our Website; and/or
• Sending us personal information when using any part of our Website

We will not collect personal information about you from third parties unless:

• You consent to the collection of the information from someone else; or
• It is unreasonable or impracticable to collect the information from you

If we collect personal information from a third party, we will inform you that personal information has been collected and the circumstances of such collection.

Your Option Not to Provide Your Personal Information

Providing us with your personal information is optional but may be required for us to be able to provide you with the services we offer. When you provide us with your personal information, you are consenting to our storage, use and disclosure of that information as outlined in this Privacy Policy.

We may from time to time APATA (The Australian Performing Arts Teachers Association Pty Ltd) runs competitions or offers additional benefits to you and we may ask you to provide us with your personal details for these purposes. Providing us with this information is optional to you. However, if you do not provide your personal information to us, we may not be able to contact you or give you access to the additional benefits.

You may opt out of these additional communications at any time and can do so by emailing us at hello@apata.com.au

Anonymity

You have the option to interact anonymously or using a pseudonym with our website. However, if you choose to remain anonymous or use a pseudonym, your experience with our website may be diminished and we may not be able to offer you our full range of services.

Unsolicited Personal Information

Where we receive unsolicited personal information about you, we will check whether that information is reasonably necessary for our functions or activities. If it is, we will handle this information the same way we do with other information we seek from you. If not, we will destroy or de-identify it.

Use and Disclosure of Your Personal Information

Your personal information, including your email address, will be used, either on its own or as part of aggregated data, for the following primary purposes:

• Providing you with news and information about our services and functions
• Purposes necessary or incidental to the provision of our services and functions
• To ensure the proper functioning of our website including customising and improving your online experience with us
• To ensure the proper functioning of the APATA (The Australian Performing Arts Teachers Association Pty Ltd) business
• Personalising your experience with our products and services, for example through connectivity with social media services
• To assist APATA (The Australian Performing Arts Teachers Association Pty Ltd) with our marketing, planning, product development and research requirements
• Sending you marketing and promotional material that we believe you may be interested in

We will not use or disclose (or permit the use or disclosure of) personal information that could be used to identify an individual member in any circumstances except:

• To ensure the proper functioning of our business and the website
• To communicate promotional offers and special events to you
• Where applicable law requires, or authorises, us or a company holding data on our behalf to do so; or
• Where you have given express consent to us for a prescribed purpose. Only with your express consent will we use or disclose personal information (including sensitive information) about you for the purposes of direct marketing

We may disclose your personal information to the following third parties for the above purposes:

• Services providers engaged to provide services to us
• Third parties who we consider may offer goods and services you are interested in

We may disclose your personal information to our related entities, including our international related entities.

You can ask us not to do this at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer at hello@apata.com.au

If we are compelled to disclose your personal information to a third party, we will take reasonable steps to notify you of this in advance, wherever it is lawful and reasonable for us to do so. We will not sell your personal information.

Security of Personal Information

In our business, personal information may be stored both electronically and in hardcopy form. We are committed to keeping your personal information secure regardless of the format in which we hold it and we take all reasonable steps to protect your information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. However, your use of the website is at your own risk and we accept no responsibility, whether we are deemed to have been negligent or not, in the event of a breach of your privacy.

Note that no information transmitted over the internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure. However, we will endeavour to protect your personal information as best as possible, but we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us or receive from us. The transmission and exchange of information is carried out at your own risk.

The protective steps we take from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification and disclosure of your personal information include:

• Confidentiality requirements of our employees
• Document storage security policies
• Security measures for access to our systems; and
• Only providing access to personal information to a person who is verified to be able to receive that information

Accuracy and Quality of Personal Information

We will take all such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that all information requested from you is kept accurate, up to date and complete. However, we cannot undertake to ensure that such data, even where it includes personal information, is kept accurate, up to date and complete.

Please notify us if you believe we hold information that is outdated, inaccurate, misleading, irrelevant or incomplete so that it can be corrected. We will not charge you for a correction.

Access to Your Personal Information

In most cases, you have the right to access the personal information that we hold about you. If you wish to access your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer at hello@apata.com.au We will deal with all requests for access to personal information as quickly as possible. Requests for a large amount of information, or information that is not currently in use, may require further time before a response can be given. We may charge you a fee to recover our reasonable costs incurred by us in order to retrieve your information, but in no case will we charge you a fee for your application for access. In some cases, we will refuse to give you access to personal information we hold about you. This includes, but is not limited to, circumstances where giving you access would be unlawful; have an unreasonable impact on other people’s privacy; prejudice an investigation of unlawful activity; reveal our intentions in relation to negotiations with you so as to prejudice those negotiations; prejudice enforcement related activities conducted by, or on behalf of, an enforcement body; reveal evaluative information generated within the APATA (The Australian Performing Arts Teachers Association Pty Ltd) organisation in connection with a commercially sensitive decision-making process.

We will also refuse access where the personal information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings, and the information would not be accessible by the process of discovery in those proceedings. Further, we will refuse access where your request is frivolous or vexatious, and where we reasonably believe that: giving access would pose a serious threat to the life, health or safety of any individual, or to public health or public safety; unlawful activity, or misconduct of a serious nature, is being or may be engaged in against APATA (The Australian Performing Arts Teachers Association Pty Ltd) and giving access would be likely to prejudice the taking of appropriate action in relation to that matter.

If we refuse to give you access we will provide you with reasons for our refusal, unless doing so would be unreasonable in the circumstances. We will also take reasonable steps to give you access in a way that meets your needs without giving rise to the reasons of our refusal. Further, we will provide details of how you may make a complaint about our decision.

Correction of Your Personal Information

The accuracy of the personal information we have requested from you is important to us. Should you suspect, or become aware of, that personal information we hold as a result of having requested it from you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete or misleading, please contact our Privacy Officer at hello@apata.com.au

We will deal with all requests for correction of personal information as quickly as possible. Requests relating to a large amount of information, or information which is not currently in use, may require further time before a response can be given. If we refuse to change the personal information as you request, we will provide you with reasons for our refusal, unless doing so would be unreasonable in the circumstances. We will also provide details of how you may make a complaint about our decision. Further, in case of our refusal, you may request that we take reasonable steps to associate, with the relevant information, a statement that you view it as inaccurate, out of date, incomplete or misleading.

In the case we have corrected personal information about you, you may request that we take reasonable steps to give notice of the correction to any third party to which we have disclosed the inaccurate, out of date, incomplete or misleading personal information.

Cross-Border Disclosure of Personal Information

To provide you with the best service possible, we may use ‘cloud’ based technology services to hold your data, including your personal information. As a consequence, your data, including your personal information (and if you have provided such information, your sensitive personal information) may be held in the data centres used by a provider of such ‘cloud’ based technology services.

It is important to note that, by becoming an APATA (The Australian Performing Arts Teachers Association Pty Ltd) member or by using the website, you consent to your data, including your personal information (and where applicable, your sensitive personal information) being transferred to data centres located outside of Australia. Your decision to become an APATA (The Australian Performing Arts Teachers Association Pty Ltd) member or to use the website also signals your consent to this technical arrangement under which APATA (The Australian Performing Arts Teachers Association Pty Ltd) does not exercise any direct control over the management of your data in those data centres.

A number of our related entities are incorporated and located overseas. We may disclose your personal information to our related entities for the purposes of operating our business and providing you with our services. Our related entities are located in:

• Australia and New Zealand

Disposal of Personal Information No Longer Required

If we hold personal information about you, and we no longer need that information for any purpose for which the information may be used or disclosed, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify that information unless we are prevented from doing so by law.

Unsubscribing from Our Email Database

To unsubscribe from our email database, please do so via any link or function contained in an email, via the website or send an e-mail to hello@apata.com.au with “UNSUBSCRIBE” typed into the subject line of the email. Note that, while you maintain an APATA (The Australian Performing Arts Teachers Association Pty Ltd) membership, you are unable to unsubscribe from certain types of e-mails, such as important updates (including information about your account, security concerns and technical issues).

Contacting Us

If you have any concerns, complaints or questions about our privacy policy, or our privacy practices, please contact our Privacy Officer at hello@apata.com.au If you consider that your complaint has not been adequately dealt with by us, you can make a further complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, which has complaint handling responsibilities under the Privacy Act.

Amendments of This Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to modify or amend this privacy policy at any time. Should any significant amendments occur, notification will be provided by publication on the website 14 days prior to the changes being implemented (the Notice Period) unless the circumstances of the amendments make it unreasonable to provide such a notice period. Your continued use after the notice period has lapsed indicates your consent to be bound by the modified and/or amended privacy policy.

For further information about privacy in general, please refer to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website: www.oaic.gov.au

Reviewed January 2024.