VERTEL’S PRIVACY POLICY

1. WELCOME TO VERTEL – WE RESPECT YOUR PRIVACY

Vertical Telecoms Pty Ltd (“Vertel”) respects your right to privacy and wants you to be aware of how we collect, use and disclose your personal information. This Privacy Policy sets out our practices in relation to information collected from you during the course of your interactions with Vertel in any manner, whether as a customer or otherwise. By providing your personal information to us, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.

2. WHAT TYPE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We may ask you to provide your personal information for a variety of reasons, including to confirm your credit history, to offer benefits like subscriptions or invitation to marketing events, or to participate in a particular activity (such as sweepstakes or other promotions).

When you enter into a contract with us, we may ask you to provide basic information such as your name, phone number, address and email address to process your order and/or to enable us to send you information and provide updates. We may collect additional information at other times, including but not limited to when you provide feedback, when you provide information about your personal or business affairs, change your content or email preferences, respond to surveys and/or marketing promotions, provide financial or credit card information, or communicate with our customer support or in any other manner. When you use our network or access our website, we will collect your IP address information.

3. HOW WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION

Vertel collects personal information from you in a variety of ways, including when you interact with us electronically or in person, when you access our website and when we engage in business activities with you. We may receive personal information from third parties. If we do, we will protect that information in accordance with this Policy. By providing us with personal information, you consent to the supply of that information subject to the terms of this Policy. We may combine the information you submit with other information we have collected from you, whether online or offline, or information from your publicly available social media profiles and other third-party information providers.

4. WHAT WE COLLECT STRAIGHT FROM YOU

Vertel collects personal information from you directly when you complete an order form, credit application, pay a bill, make a complaint, give feedback or complete a survey. Please do not provide your sensitive information (e.g. information about race or ethnicity, information about political views, health information, and criminal history) unless we specifically ask for it and if we do, we will use it only with your express consent.

5. WHAT WE COLLECT FROM YOUR DEVICE

When you use or access a Vertel application installed on your device, we collect information about you which is reasonably necessary for the protection of your lawful interests, for legislative compliance or as part of our service offering. That information includes your location, and in an emergency, your photographs, videos and voice recordings.

6. VERTEL’S WEBSITE AND INFORMATION COLLECTED

When you visit our website (www.vertel.com.au) , we may collect certain information such as browser type, operating system or website visited immediately before visiting our website. This information is used in an aggregated manner for analytics which may be used in marketing and promotional activities, to improve our service offerings, to improve the navigational experience and to promote sales.

We may from time to time use cookies on our website. Our website may from time to time use cookies to analyse website traffic and help us provide a better website visitor experience.

Our website may from time to time have links to other websites not owned or controlled by us. These links are meant for your convenience only. Links to third party websites do not constitute sponsorship or endorsement or approval of these websites and Vertel is not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites.

We may use IP addresses for purposes such as calculating usage levels, diagnosing server problems, for marketing or to derive your approximate location from your IP address. Your IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer by your Internet Service Provider. An IP address is identified and logged automatically in our server log files whenever a user visits our website, along with the time of the visit and the pages visited.

7. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Where required by applicable law, we will obtain your consent to our use of your personal information. We may also use information from or about you as necessary to perform a contract, to comply with a legal obligation, or for our legitimate business interests. We may use your browsing history on our website and patterns to derive insights about you as part of our analytics activities. We may also use personal information collected from you to provide you with information about our products or services including making you aware of new and additional products, services and opportunities available to you.

We may use your information for purposes such as:

8. DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may disclose your personal information to our employees, consultants, officers, insurers, professional advisers, financial advisors, agents, suppliers or subcontractors insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this Policy.

We may also disclose information collected:

We may disclose your personal information to comply with a legal requirement, such as a law, regulation, court order, subpoena, warrant, legal proceedings or in response to a law enforcement agency request. In addition, we may use and disclose your information as we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) to comply with legal process or applicable law, which may include laws outside your country of residence; (b) as permitted by applicable law to respond to requests from public and government authorities, which may include authorities outside your country of residence; (c) to enforce our terms and conditions; and (d) to protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you, or others. We may also use and disclose your information in other ways, after obtaining your consent to do so.

9. DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION OVERSEAS

We disclose some Personal Information to persons or organisations that are outside Australia. Your personal information may be stored, accessed, held or processed by third party suppliers or a Vertel affiliate office in a country outside your country of residence, which may provide for different data protection rules than in your country. Those third parties are generally involved in providing services like data storage, data analysis, targeted advertising and reporting, customer support, and technical/network support.

Appropriate contractual and security measures have been implemented to protect and limit access to your personal information when it is stored, accessed, held or processed by our affiliates or third parties in other countries.

10. DISCLOSURE IN COMPLIANCE WITH LEGAL OBLIGATIONS

We provide access to personal information where we are permitted or obliged to do so by Australian law. There are three main laws that we rely on to disclose personal information:

(a) The Privacy Act 1988, which contains certain exceptions that sometimes allow us to disclose personal information outside of the reasons outlined in this Policy including for the purpose of investigating serious wrongdoing and as required by law;

(b) The Telecommunications Act 1997, which includes requirements that we provide information to emergency services and the IPND database and allows us to provide information for directory listings and to retain data to run our network; and

(c) The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, which requires that we enable interception and access capability for law enforcement purposes and directs us to store data for at least two years and, when requested, provide that data and other specified information and metadata associated with your services, their use and location to certain government agencies and law enforcement;

We may also receive requests under statute for meta-data relating to your service and use of your service, warrants or subpoenas for personal information, which we must comply with.

11. GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION (GDPR) FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU)

We comply with the principles of data protection set out in the GDPR for the purpose of fairness, transparency and lawful data collection and use. We process your personal information as a Processor and/or to the extent that we are a Controller as defined in the GDPR. We must establish a lawful basis for processing your personal information. The legal basis for which we collect your personal information depends on the data that we collect and how we use it. We will only collect your personal information with your express consent for a specific purpose and any data collected will be to the extent necessary and not excessive for its purpose. We will keep your data safe and secure. We will also process your personal information if it is necessary for our legitimate interests, or to fulfil a contractual or legal obligation. We process your personal information if it is necessary to protect your life or in a medical situation, if it is necessary to carry out a public function, a task of public interest or if the function has a clear basis in law. We do not collect or process any personal information from you that is considered “Sensitive Personal Information” under the GDPR, such as personal information relating to your sexual orientation or ethnic origin unless we have obtained your explicit consent, or if it is being collected subject to and in accordance with the GDPR. You must not provide us with your personal information if you are under the age of 16 without the consent of your parent or someone who has parental authority for you. We do not knowingly collect or process the personal information of children.

12. YOUR RIGHTS UNDER THE GDPR

If you are an individual residing in the EU, you have certain rights as to how your personal information is obtained and used.

You have the following rights:

13. SECURITY OF INOFRMATION

Vertel is committed to ensuring that the information you provide to us is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have implemented suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure information and protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure. Some of the security measures we use include:

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet or data storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel that the security of any account you have with us has been compromised), please immediately notify us.

We are committed to reviewing our security policies and updating them to protect your personal information.

14. OPT OUT CHOICES

You may opt out from receiving marketing communications from us by sending an email to [email protected]. In your request, please provide your name and business name. You may also opt out of receiving marketing communications from us by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of all marketing emails.

We will seek to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that if you opt out as described above, we will not be able to remove your personal information from the databases of our affiliates with which we have already shared your information.

15. ACCESS, DELETE OR AMEND YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

You may request details of personal information that we hold about you in accordance with the provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), and to the extent applicable, the EU GDPR.

If you would like to review, correct, update, restrict, or delete your personal information, please contact us as described in the section below. We will respond to your request as soon as reasonably practicable. If circumstances cause any delay in our response, you will be promptly notified and provided a date for our response.

There is generally no charge to access your information unless the request is complicated or resource intensive. If there is a charge, we will advise you so that you can agree before we process your request.

16. RETENTION PERIOD

We will retain your personal information for as long as needed or permitted in light of the purpose(s) for which it was obtained. The criteria used to determine our retention periods include: (a) the length of time we have an ongoing relationship with you and provide services to you; (b) whether there is a legal obligation to which we are subject; and (c) whether retention is advisable in light of our legal position (such as in regard to applicable statutes of limitations, litigation, or regulatory investigations).

17. HOSTING

Hosting facilities are situated in Australia and as such data received by you is retained onshore. You acknowledge that personal data that you submit for publication through our website may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use (or misuse) of such personal data by others.

18. THIRD PARTY SITES

This Policy does not address, and we are not responsible for the privacy, information, or other practices of any third parties, including any third party operating any site or online service (including, without limitation, any application) that is available through this website or to which this website contains a link. The availability of, or inclusion of a link to, any such site or property on the website does not imply endorsement of it by us or by our affiliates.

19. COMPLAINT HANDLING - CONTACT US

If you have any questions or concerns about this Policy or wish to make a complaint about our privacy practices, please email [email protected] and [email protected]. We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 2-3 business days and investigate and respond to you within 30 days. If you are unhappy with the outcome, you can lodge a complaint in writing with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman whose details can be found at www.tio.com.au or the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner whose details can be found at https://www.oaic.gov.au/. You may also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to learn further about your privacy rights.