RateCity Privacy Policy
Last updated: 13 September, 2007
Introduction
RateCity Pty Limited ("RateCity") is a joint venture between ninemsn and CANNEX Pty Limited.
As the operator of Australia's leading personal finance comparison website, RateCity delivers content drawn from CANNEX's extensive financial product databases, as well as providing access to third-party content.
Any information that you provide under RateCity services provided through our site may be collected and used by RateCity, governed by this privacy policy.
This statement sets out RateCity's policies relating to the collection and use of your personal information.
It applies to your conduct on the RateCity website.
These policies are in addition to RateCity's general Terms of Use governing the website and should be read in conjunction with such Terms of Use.
You must not use our website or our Services if you do not accept this Privacy Policy.
Your personal information is important to us
We recognise that your privacy is very important and that you have a right to control personal information. Personal information is information or an opinion about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained. It includes all personal information regardless of its source. We know that providing personal information is an act of trust and we take that seriously. The following sections set out how we handle and protect your personal information and safeguard your privacy.
How we collect information about you
Whenever you visit RateCity, our servers may automatically record information about your usage of the Network, such as the time of the visit, its duration and the pages you visit.
This is to help us understand what parts of RateCity our users enjoy the most and to help us ensure that advertisements on the website are most directly relevant to your interests.
In these instances, the information we collect about you remains anonymous.
We will, if it is reasonable or practicable to do so, also collect your personal information from you.
This may happen when you fill out an application form for a life company product or for a 'Annuity Quote Scenario'.
Collection of some of your personal information is essential for completion of some of the functions and activities of RateCity.
If we do not collect and make use of some of the data that you enter, we will not be able to complete some of the functions for which this web site is designed.
The data entered by you may include your name, postal or email address, date of birth or other information considered necessary for any application process you may be undertaking.
No matter how your personal information is collected, it is dealt with by RateCity in accordance with the National Privacy Principles.
Using and Disclosing Personal Information
In line with modern business practices common to many institutions and in order to meet your specific needs (such as where you have a financial adviser), RateCity may disclose your personal information in certain circumstances, to third party organisations whose products you may require. These organisations may include life companies, managed fund and superannuation organisations, dealer groups, general insurers/car insurers, financial advisers and planners and their service providers.
Where your personal information is disclosed, we will seek to ensure that the information is held, used or disclosed consistently with the National Privacy Principles and other applicable privacy laws and codes.
It may also be disclosed to in relation to maintaining, reviewing and developing our business systems, procedures and infrastructure including testing or upgrading our computer systems as required or authorised by law, for example, to government or regulatory bodies for purposes related to public health or safety, the prevention or detection of unlawful activities or to protect public revenue.
We will never share your personal information with a third party or allow a third party to promote its products and services directly to you without your explicit consent.
Consumer Calculators Available on RateCity
A 'Consumer Calculator' is defined as a calculator which is available, for free on the publicly accessible RateCity website, to non-subscribing users of the calculator. 'Consumer' calculators require only the minimum of customer data to derive a result. RateCity does not collect or store any data entered into any Consumer Calculator.
Data Security - Protecting Your Personal Information
We store information in different ways, including in paper and electronic format. The security of your personal information is important to us and we take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse and loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Some of the ways we do this are:
- confidentiality agreements for our employees and contractors;
- security measures for systems access;
- only allowing access to personal information where the individual seeking access has satisfied our identification requirements;
- access control for our buildings;
- destroying or permanently de-identifying your personal information if it is no longer needed for the purpose which the information was originally collected, used or disclosed under National Privacy Policy Principles.
Our use of cookies
Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to your computer's hard disk for record-keeping purposes. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies. However, if you do not wish to receive any cookies, you may set your browser to refuse them (for more information on disabling cookies, click here). In some instances this may mean you will not be able to take full advantage of parts of RateCity.
The use of cookies can enhance your enjoyment of what we offer, because they can help us personalise your experience of our website by providing information which is most relevant to your interests. Cookies provide us with aggregated information on how users interact on our website, track which advertisements are effective and help us improve your experience on RateCity. Cookies do not personally identify you, but your browser.
We may use independent companies to measure and analyse Internet usage across the website. The tracking collects the following core information on usage of RateCity website:
- The number of page views (or page impressions);
- The number of unique visitors;
- How long these unique visitors (on average) spend on the website;
- Common entry and exit points into the website.
This aggregate, non-personal information is collated and provided to us to assist in analysing usage of the website. The data is also accessible by media organisations and research companies for the purpose of conducting industry comparisons with other Internet sites.
Pages on the website may be coded with tracking software. This is transparent to the user, as the software makes use of an invisible image (via Javascript) or an invisible Java Applet, at the bottom of the web page. This software stores a cookie in your browser, which contains a unique identifier. This enables the ability to track the number of unique visitors to the website. In no way does this unique identifier identify a user personally. We do not and will not marry any data collected by independent tracking software with any personal information collected on the website.
Advertisements
The advertisements that you see displayed on this website are delivered on our behalf by a third party advertising company. No personal data for example your name, address, email address or telephone number are used during the course of serving our advertising, but, on our behalf, our third-party advertiser may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. This cookie does not collect personal data about you nor is it linked to any personal data about you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by this company, please click here
Resolving Your Privacy Issues
If you have any issues you wish to raise with RateCity, or would like to discuss any issues about our Privacy Policy, then you are able to do so, as you are always welcome to speak directly to our staff and they will do their best to resolve your issue. If investigation is required we will keep you advised of progress. If staff are unable to resolve the matter, it will be escalated as appropriate to facilitate resolution
Changes to the Privacy Policy
Our commitment to make RateCity Australia's leading personal finance website means that we will be constantly adding new sites and features to the website. We will continuously review our Privacy Policy to ensure that it protects your privacy while supporting your user experience on RateCity. We encourage you to keep visiting our Privacy Policy to see if any updates have been made.
Further information on privacy
For more information about privacy issues in Australia, visit the Australian Federal Privacy Commissioner's website.