Privacy Policy
Australian Privacy Policy
Our commitment to protect your privacy
In your relationship with BRITA Water Filter Systems Distributors Pty Ltd (we/us/our), you share personal information with us. This information may include your name, date of birth, address, telephone numbers, email addresses, bank accounts, Paypal details, credit card details and other personal details in connection with transactions entered into with us or other dealing you have with us.
We recognise the importance of your privacy and how important it is for us to protect your personal information. We are committed to protecting personal information which we hold and to complying with all relevant privacy laws in the jurisdictions in which we operate, namely the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
We have a general policy of openness about how we collect, use and disclose your personal information and this document describes how we manage your personal information and safeguard your privacy.
We strongly recommend that you take the time to read this Privacy Policy.
By using our website or by accepting the terms of one of our agreements which refer to this privacy policy, you are agreeing to the terms of this privacy policy and you consent to the processing of your personal data by BRITA as set forth in this Privacy Policy. Where you deal with us other than through our e-commerce platform, your personal data may be processed in Germany by our related companies, rather than in Australia. Your personal information will still be protected in accordance with this Privacy Policy as well as the privacy policy of our related companies. By giving us your personal data you explicitly consent to the personal data being transferred to our related companies in Germany and New Zealand.
What personal Information do we collect and hold about you?
When dealing with people other than our employees, we will only collect personal information that is necessary for us to:
- lawfully and ethically carry on our business
- provide employment
- provide the goods and services our customers and consumers require
- identify suppliers, contractors and consultants with whom we may wish to deal
- let our customers and consumers know about other products and/or services which might interest them
- identify customers and consumers who might be interested in our products and/or services; and
- assist us generally in managing transactions with our consumers, customers, suppliers and other contacts with us (including charging, billing, credit card authorisation and verification and collecting debts).
The kinds of personal information we collect and hold will depend upon the type of products and services we provide to you, or obtain from you. It may be contained in:
- information you give us when you request a product, service or information from us, enter a competition of ours, subscribe to our newsletters, or like us or otherwise connect with us on Facebook or other social media platforms
- postings you make on any blog or forums on any site we may operate
- records of communications between us and you, including in relation to any complaints or enquiries
- credit account application forms and guarantee documents
- communications and agreements entered into when you trade with us
- credit or banking related information necessary to process payment of your purchases from us or our payments to you and
- information about the use of one of our products, or your opinions about that product, recorded when you respond to a survey
- information obtained through the use of Google products on our websites.
The personal information we request is optional, but if you choose not to provide necessary personal information to us, we may not be able to fulfill your request or provide you with the product or service you require – particularly when you are using our e-commerce platform to buy our products. Sometimes, however, there are situations where we are required by law to collect certain personal information from you and, if this is the case, we will inform you of the law that imposes this requirement.
Where practical, you may interact with us anonymously. For example providing feedback to us that does not require a response from us. However, in many cases it will not be possible to interact with us anonymously because we need your personal information to be able to provide the products, services or information you are requesting. For example, to handle your orders on our e-commerce platform or if you wish to subscribe to an email newsletter then we need an email address for you.
Where appropriate and practical, at the point of collection of your information we may provide you either an “opt in” or “opt-out” mechanism. An “opt-in” mechanism will provide you the opportunity to positively indicate that you would like or do not object to our sending you such further communications. An “opt-out” mechanism will provide you the opportunity to indicate that you do not want us to send you such further communications, and if you “opt-out” we will not send you any. At any time you may opt out of such future contact by contacting us.
When we collect personal information from you we will generally tell you why the information is being collected, unless the reason for its collection is self evident.
We will collect personal information directly from you whenever it is reasonably practicable to do so. We may, at times, also collect personal information from other parties such as third party social media services such as Facebook or TikTok where they are integrated with our services or websites, unrelated third parties as well as from your agents or representatives (such as your legal or financial adviser), from publicly available sources of information and, where applicable, from credit reporting bodies.
Your privacy on our websites
With a view to organising our internet presence in a user-friendly manner and adjusting it as best as possible to your needs, we use “cookies” in some areas of our website. A cookie is a piece of information that our web server sends to your computer (more precisely, that is stored in your browser directly) as soon as you visit the website and is kept available by your computer for subsequent retrieval. These cookies facilitate the use of our online offers. You can prevent the setting of cookies by configuring your browser software accordingly. If necessary, consult the manufacturer's website for instructions on how to do this. You might not be able to use the full functionality of our website if you prevent the use of cookies.
Whenever you visit our web pages, the data of your visit (such as your IP Address, the date and time of your visit, the pages accessed, as well as your web browser’s type and operating system and the domain name and address of your internet service provider) will be stored temporarily in a server log file. Storing such so-called server log data is absolutely necessary both for technical reasons and to ensure system security. Such data will be evaluated by the service providers commissioned by us on an anonymous basis, and only for statistical purposes reporting and website administration and maintenance purposes, including improving the quality of our internet presence. No server log data is associated with the personal data of a particular individual. In particular, no server log data will be combined with other data sources.
Our website also uses Google Analytics and Google Signals provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics is a web analytics service and Google Signals is a Google product that enables cross-device reporting. Google Analytics also uses “cookies” and the information generated by the cookie about your use of this website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google Signals will associate information collected in relation to the use of our websites with Google information from the accounts of signed-in users who have consented to this association for the purpose of ads personalization. This information may include your location, search history, YouTube history and data from other sites that you visit that partner with Google. For more information on how Google uses this information, should consider Google’s article “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps” (which is located at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites, or any other URL Google may provide from time to time). By using our website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out in that article as updated by Google from time to time.
What do we do with the personal information we collect?
We respect your privacy. Subject to exceptions permitted under the Privacy Act, any personal information we collect about you will only be used for the purposes for which it is collected, or for related purposes, where you would reasonably expect your personal information to be used or disclosed for such a purpose (such as to improve our products and websites). We will not disclose it without your consent, except as described in this privacy policy and otherwise as permitted under the Privacy Act.
We may keep and file personal information you provide when dealing with us to assist us in providing you with our services and/or information of interest in respect of your business or your interests as a consumer. For example, we may send publications or other information on our products and services to you or follow up on your interest in particular products and services, unless you tell us not to. In order to do this, we disclose your personal information to those employees or advisers who need to know that information to assist us in providing you with our range of products and services.
We may at times disclose your personal information to affiliates and other third parties necessary to process your transactions or service your account (including merchant facility and online payment providers, print service providers, call centres and mail houses, our accountants, auditors and lawyers and credit reporting bodies and collection agencies). We may also disclose your personal information to third parties for research and profiling purposes.
We may also disclose your personal information in corporate transactions involving the transfer of all or part of our business or its assets, or in a corporate restructure. If we do this, we will require these parties to protect your information in the same way we do.
We may also be required or authorised by law to disclose your personal information in certain circumstances. For example, we may disclose your personal information to a court in response to a subpoena or to the relevant Taxation Agency. We may also disclose information to other persons where we are permitted to do so by law or where you have provided your consent to do so.
How do we protect your personal information?
Personal information collected by us in connection with your use of our e-commerce platform is stored and processed in Australia and will continue to be subject to the terms of our privacy policy until it is destroyed or de-identified by us. All personal information collected elsewhere on our website will be stored and processed in Germany and will continue to be subject to the terms of our privacy policy until it is destroyed or de-identified by us.
We take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, modification, or unauthorised access and disclosure. We take technical and organizational security measures including access control for our buildings, confidentiality obligations imposed on our employees and use of security measures for computer system access. Our data processing and our security measures are continuously improved in line with technological developments.
We have taken the steps to help ensure your personal information is kept as safe as is reasonably possible, having regard to how you are dealing with us. In the case of our e-commerce platform, we use industry standard on-line security measures and any personal data exchanged between you and us will be transferred via encrypted state of the art connections. When transmitting personal information from a computer to us, you should keep in mind that the transmission of information by email or over the Internet is not completely secure or error-free and you should take special care in deciding what information to send to us via email.
In the case of our e-commerce platform, all personal information is housed in secure, access restricted areas and only employees who need the information to perform a specific function are granted access to it. Those employees are subject to obligations of confidentiality.
What rights do you have in relation to your personal information which we hold?
We take all reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect, use and disclose is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you become aware of any errors in your personal information or you change your personal details (for example your name, address or bank account details) we ask you to contact us as soon as possible using the contact details provided for the Privacy Officer below.
In most cases, you can gain access to personal information that we hold about you, subject to certain exceptions allowed by law. You can contact us if you would like details of your personal information which we may hold, or if you would like us to correct it. We will handle any request in accordance with the relevant privacy legislation. We may request that you complete a request form and, although there is no fee for making a request to access your personal information, we reserve the right to charge a reasonable fee for giving you access. Before access is given we will advise you if a fee may be imposed, and the likely amount of the fee. We will deal with requests as quickly as possible, but requests for a large amount of information, or information which is not currently in use, may require further time to process.
Generally, if you request us to do so we will amend any personal information about you held by us which is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. If we disagree with you about the accuracy, completeness or currency of personal information held by us, if you ask we will take reasonable steps to associate with that information a statement to the effect that you claim this to be the case.
You may also contact us to request us to stop using your personal information to contact you about our products and services. If you no longer conduct business with us, you can ask us to remove your personal information and to the extent that it is commercially reasonable for us to do so, we will comply with that request. You can also contact our Privacy Officer if you wish to obtain more information about the way we manage personal information about you which we hold, or if you are concerned that we may have breached your privacy and wish to make a complaint.
Our Privacy Officer can be contacted at:
BRITA Australia
P.O. Box 4066
Macquarie Centre, NSW, 2113
Australia
1300 557 765
au10_help@brita.net
We will consider and respond to any complaint notified to us within a reasonable period (usually 30 days) and we will always endeavour to resolve any complaint to your satisfaction.
If you are not satisfied with the way in which we handle your enquiry or complaint, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner on 1300 363 992 or email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au.
What do we do when we no longer need your personal Information for the purposes for which it was obtained?
Once we no longer require your personal information for any of the purposes for which it was collected we will, subject to any legal obligations and responsibilities to retain it, take reasonable steps to either destroy or de-identify your personal information. However, we may keep track of past transactions for our accounting and audit requirements. Furthermore, it may be impossible to completely delete your information because some information may remain as backups.
Links to other sites
You may be able to access external websites, operated by companies unrelated to us, by clicking on links we have provided. Those other websites are not subject to our privacy standards and we are not responsible for their privacy practices or the content of such other websites. If you follow a link to a third party website from our site, the website policy of the third party website applies and we accept no liability for breaches of privacy. You should contact those websites directly to ascertain their privacy standards, policies and procedures.
Changes to this privacy statement
We may change our privacy policies from time to time to comply with new laws or industry codes of practice which are developed or to reflect changes in the way carry on our business. It is your responsibility to refer to our privacy policies from time to time to familiarise yourself with any changes. We encourage you to visit our website regularly for any updates to our privacy policies.
Last Updated: 5 April 2019