Rural Skills Australia (RSA) understands its obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and recognises that privacy is uppermost in its dealings with stakeholders and business contacts. This includes the acquisition and retention of personal and business information for the purposes of maintaining a stakeholder information service through an industry newsletter. 

The nature of personal and business related information may include names, contact information (email addresses, websites and phone numbers) and areas of interest and/or industry sector. This also applied to activities by Education and Training Advisers in all jurisdictions, and services provided by Apprenticeship Advisers to the agriculture and horticulture industries and interaction with government, peak industry bodies and training providers.

RSA notes that new National Privacy Principles (NPPs) came into effect on 21 December 2001 providing guidelines for private sector and health organisations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Act). 

The use of this information to inform RSA’s stakeholders using newsletters and other forms of electronic media are also governed under provisions of the Spam Act 2003. The Spam Act exempts government departments and agencies from consent and unsubscribe conditions, providing the department or agency identifies itself and that unsubscribe provisions are available. The majority of RSA’s activities are funded by the Australian Government under a range of departmental programs designed to support and enhance the uptake of skills and training in rural industries across Australia.

73.163 The Spam Act does not prohibit sending ‘designated commercial electronic messages’. A commercial electronic message is a ‘designated commercial electronic message’ if it consists of no more than factual information, or the message is authorised by:

• a government body, registered political party, religious organisation, a charity or charitable institution, and the message relates to goods or services, and the body is the supplier, or prospective supplier, of the goods or services concerned; or
• an educational institution, and the account holder is, or has been, enrolled as a student in that institution or is a member or former member of the household of the relevant electronic account holder and is, or has been, enrolled as a student in that institution, and the message relates to the supply of goods or services, and the educational institution is the supplier, or prospective supplier, of the goods or services concerned.

Personal and or business details may be used by RSA with the user’s consent and at their request, to send email messages, including regular newsletters, about RSA activities and government and industry programs and events and upcoming events from time to time. 

This information obtained by RSA in the course of its activities may include information that is voluntarily provided. Web based software may identify the type of the Internet browser, operating systems, pages visited and the referring site. This data is used to produce statistics about website use and the level of interest in newsletter items. This data is used purely to assess interest in RSA website and web portals, and items that are of most interest to website visitors and newsletter recipients. These details are not sold or in any way passed on to third parties. 

Disclosure statement 

RSA may use a range of information, including that collected through its website, for statistical purposes to improve the range of its products and services and to update its own database of stakeholders. 

RSA will not disclose personal or business information about existing and potential stakeholders and clients to third parties. Unforeseen circumstances could lead to a lawful request for disclosures to be made to law enforcement agencies, government agencies (as set down in funding arrangements with the Australian Government) courts or external advisers.  

RSA’s privacy policy is that such disclosures if requested would be made under the appropriate provisions of the Privacy Act 1988.  RSA will not under any circumstances sell information about its stakeholders or pass details on to any third parties except under the circumstances outlined above.

Security and storage of information 

RSA takes reasonable steps to ensure the security of personal information it holds. This includes reasonable provisions to protect against such risks as loss or unauthorised access, destruction, use, modification or disclosure. RSA has in place technical, contractual, administrative and physical security steps to protect all stakeholders’ information, comprising of names, email addresses and telephone numbers (principally involving access to clients by RSA employees in the proper course of their duties). 

Access and correction 

Under the Privacy Act 1988, stakeholders would have a right to seek access to information that RSA holds about them, as well as the right to ask for the correction of information that is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.

Disclaimer

Rural Skills Australia (RSA) has taken all reasonable care in producing the information contained within this website. RSA does not accept responsibility for loss or damage arising from the use of this information. Information supplied by RSA within this website is predominantly based on publicly available information, externally and internally developed data and other sources. RSA is committed to a policy of openness regarding the manner in which it collects and uses personal information. 

RSA collects limited personal information relating to staff and, from time to time, other third parties in the conduct of its business. Where possible RSA is committed to collecting any such personal information directly from the person to whom it relates. RSA will not disclose personal information except as required by law, or to the extent that the parties to which it relates would reasonably expect such disclosure in the general course of business.

RSA is committed to handling personal information in a secure, accurate and responsible manner. You may download the information within this website for your own personal use or to inform others about our materials, but you may not reproduce or modify it without the RSA’s expressed written permission.

Contact 

Should you wish to discuss the collection and use of personal information as it relates to you or the Privacy Policy please contact RSA’s Executive Director on 02 6269 5630.