PRIVACY POLICY

Who are we

‘We’, ‘us’, ‘our’ or “The Group” refer to PEER GROUP ACCOUNTANTS PTY LTD ACN: 611 567 750 their related body corporates, directors, partners, employees, service providers, licensees, licensees and their employees, contractors and any referred real estate agent/finance broker/financial planner/ accountant that will assist you.

Commitment to Privacy

This Privacy Policy sets out the way in which we will use, manage and protect your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles (APP) contained in the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012.

We recognise that any personal information we collect about you will only be used for the purposes we have collected it or as allowed by law. It is important to us that you are confident that any personal information we hold about you will be treated in a way that ensures protection of your personal information.

Our commitment in respect of personal information is to abide by the Australian Privacy Principles for the protection of personal information, as set out in the Privacy Act, Spam Act 2003, Do Not Call Register Act 2006 and the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, and any other relevant laws.

Personal Information

When we refer to personal information we mean information from which your identity is reasonably apparent. This information may include information or an opinion about you.

The kinds of personal information we may collect about you include your name, mailing or street address, telephone number, email address, facsimile number, age or birth date, occupation, profession, TFN, ABN and any other information relating to you that you provide directly or indirectly through our related body corporates, employees, Licensees and their employees, websites, representatives, contractors, service providers, customer surveys, Open For Inspections forms or visits by our representatives from time to time.

If you give us personal information about another person, you represent that you are authorised to do so and agree that you have obtained consent from that person for us to use and disclose their personal information and that they may access any personal information we hold about them.

Why we collect personal information

We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information so that we can conduct our business activities.

Your personal information is used for the following purposes
• to assist you with, buying, selling or renting a property
• to enable us to assess your suitability and eligibility for buying, selling or renting a property, property management services, applying for home loans, insurance policy or for the provision of other services
• to provide marketing including direct marketing, related bodies corporate, franchisees, franchisees real estate agents and employees, contractors, service providers or other third parties;
• to provide conveyancing and property settlement services
• to provide Accountancy and Taxation Services
• to provide Financial Planning Services
• to provided Superannuation Management Services
• to manage our relationship with you;
• to answer any enquiries and provide information or advise about existing products and services or new products and services offered by the Group;
• to update our records to keep your details up to date;
• if you apply to become a Licensee with us or apply for employment with us we will collect information about you to assist us to decide whether to appoint you
• to provide you with access to the protected areas of our website

Your personal information will not be used in any other way other than what is described in this Privacy Policy.

How do we collect your personal information

When collecting information from you we may collect it in ways including:
• Our websites, telephone, letter, fax or email,
• Conversations between our representatives
• Contracting with us,
• Open For Inspections,
• By entering into competition, promotions or requesting material from us.
• From third parties such as your representatives (Lawyers, Accountants, Finance/Mortgage Brokers and Financial Advisers)
• Your Employer, Credit Reporting Agencies, Law Enforcement Agencies and Government Entities
• Any other Organisation where you have given consent

To whom we disclose your personal information

To ensure you receive the highest possible service levels and best possible outcomes, we may disclose your personal information to our business partners or other organisations that provide products or services used or marketed by us.

Personal information that you provide to us will only be disclosed to a third party either in Australia and/or overseas, if we are required or authorised by law to disclose the information.

Any information that is disclosed will be done in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (APP).

The types of organisations to which we are likely to disclose information about you include mortgage intermediaries, finance brokers, mortgage brokers, financial planners, insurance brokers, registered valuers, surveyors, accountants, SMSF auditors, registered auditors, lawyers, credit reporting Bodies, recoveries firms, debt collectors, real-estate agents, building and pest inspection contractors and property management services contractors.

We may also disclose your personal information to any other organisation that may have or is considering having an interest in your property purchase/sale or in our business.

Your personal information may be disclosed between “the Group” to facilitate a transaction to which the provision of that personal information relates or to enable us to properly conduct our business within “the Group”.

Disclosure to Overseas Parties

The Peer Group will never sell, lease or surrender our database to any party whatsoever. At the time of writing this Privacy Policy the Peer Group website and cloud-based CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) software are hosted by Australian website hosting companies with their servers located within Australian borders.

From time to time, overseas hosting companies may host our data on their servers, however the Peer Group will only engage reputable companies that have well established privacy and data protection service agreements.

All companies conducting business with the Peer Group; whether foreign or domestic are bound by agreements that further protect your information. This includes overseas companies that may be engaged as contractors to help develop our business proprietary systems.

How is your information stored?

We take reasonable steps to securely store personal details and information. This includes electronic and physical security measures, staff training, and use of password protection software. Details of our security systems are available by contacting our Privacy Officer.

When the personal information that we collect is no longer required, we will remove or de-identify the personal information as soon as reasonably possible.

We may, however, retain personal information in our IT backups for as long as is necessary to comply with any applicable law, for the prevention of fraud, for insurance and governance purposes, for the collection of any monies owed and to resolve disputes.

Direct Marketing

We may use personal information; specifically your name, telephone number, email address and relevant home or postal address details, to let you know about our services, facilities and benefits and those of our related bodies corporates, licensees, licensees agents and employees, contractors, service providers of the Peer Group.

We and/or our related bodies corporates, licensee, licensee’s agents and employees, contractors, service providers or other third parties may contact you for direct marketing purposes in a variety of ways, including by mail, email, SMS, telephone, online advertising or facsimile.

Open for Inspection Collection Notice

Privacy Act 1988, Spam Act 2003, Do Not Call Register Act 2006 and the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009.

We store and use your personal information collected from you at the Open for Inspections for security purposes on behalf of our clients.

We will also use your personal information to contact you by means of any officer, contractor, employee or agent in relation to this property as well as other properties, products and services which we believe may be of interest to you.

We will also contact you for customer feedback on our services.

In providing your personal information you consent to us collecting, storing and using your personal information in the manner set out above and you consent to us disclosing your personal information to our related bodies corporate and each of their officers, contractors, employees and agents who may collect, store and use of your personal information in the manner set out above.

You are also consenting for us to give your personal information to our preferred product suppliers; for them to offer you products that we may receive a commission on.

You acknowledge and agree that this consent is effective consent for the purposes of the Do Not Call Register Act 2006, Spam Act 2003, Privacy Act 1988 and National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 and is deemed to be for an indefinite period (unless you advise us differently).

If the information is not provided by you we may not be able to provide an effective service to you.

If you require more information you can contact Peer Property or agent with which you have dealings, or contact us on the details provided below.

Opting Out

We may send you direct marketing communications and information about our product services that we consider may be of interest to you. Your consent will remain current until you advise us otherwise.

However, you can opt out at any time, in the following ways:
• Send a letter to the Peer Group Po Box 508 Sandgate 4017
• Send an email to privacy@peergroup.com.au
• Advise us if you receive a marketing call that you no longer wish to receive these calls
• Use the unsubscribe facility that we include in our commercial electronic messages (such as emails and SMSs) to opt out of receiving those messages
• Use the Opt Out facility used in the marketing communications

Notification of source

If we have collected the personal information that we use to send you direct marketing material from a third party (for example a direct mail database provider), you can ask us to notify you of our source of information, the Peer Group policy is to do so unless this is unreasonable or impracticable.

Change in our Privacy Policy

We are constantly reviewing all of our policies and attempt to keep up to date with market expectations. Technology is constantly changing, as is the law and market place practices.

As a consequence we may change this Privacy Policy from time to time or as the need arises.

You may request this Privacy Policy in an alternative form.

This Privacy Policy came into existence on 12th March 2014

Peer Group Pty Ltd understands that your privacy is important to you. We are committed to protecting the privacy of your personally-identifiable information as you use this website. This Privacy Policy tells you how we protect and use information that we gather from you. By using this website, you consent to the terms described in the most recent version of this Privacy Policy. “We,” “our” means Peer Group Pty Ltd and its affiliates. “You,” “your,” visitor,” or “user” means the individual accessing this site.

PERSONAL AND NON-PERSONAL INFORMATION

Our Privacy Policy identifies how we treat your personal and non-personal information.

WHAT IS NON-PERSONAL INFORMATION AND HOW IS IT COLLECTED AND USED?

Non personal information is information that cannot identify you. If you visit this web site to read information, such as information about one of our services, we may collect certain non-personal information about you from your computer’s web browser. Because non-personal information cannot identify you or be tied to you in any way, there are no restrictions on the ways that we can use or share non-personal information. What is personal information and how is it collected? Personal information is information that identifies you as an individual, such as your name, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number, and fax number. We may collect personal information from you in a variety of ways:

• When you send us an application or other form

• When you conduct a transaction with us, our affiliates, or others

• When we collect information about in you in support of a transaction, such as credit card information

• In some places on this web site you have the opportunity to send us personal information about yourself, to elect to receive particular information, to purchase access to one of our products or services, or to participate in an activity.

ARE COOKIES OR OTHER TECHNOLOGIES USED TO COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Yes, we may use cookies and related technologies, such as web beacons, to collect information on our web site. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you register with us, a cookie helps Peer Group Pty Ltd to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same Peer Group Pty Ltd website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the features that you customized. A web beacon is a small graphic image that allows the party that set the web beacon to monitor and collect certain information about the viewer of the web page, web-based document or e-mail message, such as the type of browser requesting the web beacon, the IP address of the computer that the web beacon is sent to and the time the web beacon was viewed. Web beacons can be very small and invisible to the user, but, in general, any electronic image viewed as part of a web page or e-mail, including HTML based content, can act as a web beacon. We may use web beacons to count visitors to the web pages on the web site or to monitor how our users navigate the web site, and we may include web beacons in e-mail messages in order to count how many messages sent were actually opened, acted upon or forwarded.

Third party vendors also may use cookies on our web site. For instance, we may contract with third parties who will use cookies on our web site to track and analyze

anonymous usage and volume statistical information from our visitors and members. Such information is shared externally only on an anonymous, aggregated basis. These third parties use persistent cookies to help us to improve the visitor experience, to manage our site content, and to track visitor behaviour. We may also contract with a third party to send e-mail to our registered users.

To help measure and improve the effectiveness of our e-mail communications, the third party sets cookies. All data collected by this third party on behalf of Peer Group Pty Ltd is used solely by or on behalf of Peer Group Pty Ltd and is shared externally only on an anonymous, aggregated basis. From time to time we may allow third parties to post advertisements on our web site, and those third-party advertisements may include a cookie or web beacon served by the third party. This Privacy Policy does not cover the use of information collected from you by third party ad servers. We do not control cookies in such third party ads, and you should check the privacy policies of those advertisers and/or ad services to learn about their use of cookies and other technology before linking to an ad. We will not share your personal information with these companies, but these companies may use information about your visits to this and other web sites in order to provide advertisements on this site and other sites about goods and services that may be of interest to you, and they may share your personal information that you provide to them with others. We may also use cookie data to show personalised or targeted advertising on third party advertising networks such as Facebook or the Google Display Network.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the Peer Group Pty Ltd websites you visit.

HOW DOES Peer Group Pty Ltd USE PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Peer Group Pty Ltd may keep and use personal information we collect from or about you to provide you with access to this web site or other products or services, to respond to your requests, to bill you for products/services you

purchased, and to provide ongoing service and support, to contact you with information that might be of interest to you, including information about products and services of ours and of others, or ask for your opinion about our products or the products of others, for record keeping and analytical purposes and to research, develop and improve programs, products, services and content.

Personal information collected online may be combined with information you provide to us through other sources We may also remove your personal identifiers (your name, email address, social security number, etc). In this case, you would no longer be identified as a single unique individual. Once we have de-identified information, it is non-personal information and we may treat it like other non-personal information. Finally, we may use your personal information to protect our rights or property, or to protect someone’s health, safety or welfare, and to comply with a law or regulation, court order or other legal process.

DOES Peer Group Pty Ltd SHARE PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH OTHERS?

We will not share your personal information collected from this web site with an unrelated third party without your permission, except as otherwise provided in this Privacy Policy. In the ordinary course of business, we may share some personal information with companies that we hire to perform services or functions on our behalf. In all cases in which we share your personal information with a third party for the purpose of providing a service to us, we will not authorize them to keep, disclose or use your information with others except for the purpose of providing the services we asked them to provide.

We will not sell, exchange or publish your personal information, except in conjunction with a corporate sale, merger, dissolution, or acquisition. For some sorts of transactions, in addition to our direct collection of information, our third party service vendors (such as credit card companies, clearinghouses and banks) who may provide such services as credit, insurance, and escrow services may collect personal information directly from you to assist you with your transaction. We do not control

how these third parties use such information, but we do ask them to disclose how they use your personal information before they collect it.

If you submit a review for a third party (person or business) using our Facebook Fan Review Application, during the submission process we ask your permission to gather your basic information (such as name and email address) which we then share with the third party for whom you are submitting the review. We may be legally compelled to release your personal information in response to a court order, subpoena, search warrant, law or regulation.

We may cooperate with law enforcement authorities in investigating and prosecuting web site visitors who violate our rules or engage in behavior, which is harmful to other visitors (or illegal). We may disclose your personal information to third parties if we feel that the disclosure is necessary to protect our rights or property, protect someone’s health, safety or welfare, or to comply with a law or regulation, court order or other legal process. As discussed in the section on cookies and other technologies, from time to time we may allow a third party to serve advertisements on this web site.

If you share information with the advertiser, including by clicking on their ads, this Privacy Policy does not control the advertisers use of your personal information, and you should check the privacy policies of those advertisers and/or ad services to learn about their use of cookies and other technology before linking to an ad.

HOW IS PERSONAL INFORMATION USED FOR COMMUNICATIONS?

We may contact you periodically by e-mail, mail or telephone to provide information regarding programs, products, services and content that may be of interest to you. In addition, some of the features on this web site allow you to communicate with us using an online form. If your communication requests a response from us, we may send you a response via e-mail. The e-mail response or confirmation may include your personal information. We cannot guarantee that our e-mails to you will be secure from unauthorized interception.

HOW IS PERSONAL INFORMATION SECURED?

We have implemented generally accepted standards of technology and operational security in order to protect personally-identifiable information from loss, misuse, alteration, or destruction. Only authorized personnel and third party vendors have access to your personal information, and these employees and vendors are required to treat this information as confidential. Despite these precautions, we cannot guarantee that unauthorized persons will not obtain access to your personal information.

LINKS

This site contains links to other sites that provide information that we consider to be interesting. Peer Group Pty Ltd is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such web sites.

PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS

This site may provide public discussions on various business valuation topics. Please note that any information you post in these discussions will become public, so please do not post sensitive information in the public discussions. Whenever you publicly disclose information online, that information could be collected and used by others. We are not responsible for any action or policies of any third parties who collect information that users disclose in any such forums on the web site. Peer Group Pty Ltd does not agree or disagree with anything posted on the discussion board. Also remember that you must comply with our other published policies regarding postings on our public forums.

HOW CAN A USER ACCESS, CHANGE, AND/OR DELETE PERSONAL INFORMATION?

You may access, correct, update, and/or delete any personally-identifiable information that you submit to the web site. You may also unsubscribe from mailing lists or any registrations on the web site. To do so, please either follow instructions on the page of the web site on which you have provided such information or subscribed or registered or contact us at privacy@peergroup.com.au

CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

Peer Group Pty Ltd will not intentionally collect any personal information (such as a child’s name or email address) from children under the age of 13. If you think that we have collected personal information from a child under the age of 13, please contact us.

CHANGES

Peer Group Pty Ltd reserves the right to modify this statement at any time. Any changes to this Privacy Policy will be listed in this section, and if such changes are material, a notice will be included on the homepage of the web site for a period of time. If you have any questions about privacy at any websites operated by Peer Group Pty Ltd or about our website practices, please contact us at: privacy@peergroup.com.au

Contacting Us

You can make any requests relating to the treatment of your personal information or requests relating to your personal information held.

We will respond to your request within 30 days and/or a reasonable period of time from when the request was made.

Our Obligations

The Group is bound by the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles (APP) contained within the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012.

The Group has appointed a Privacy Officer to be the company point of contact for all privacy matters. Please contact us if you wish to discuss any privacy issues.

John King (Privacy Officer)
Peer Group Accountant’s Pty Ltd
privacy@peergroup.com.au
Phone: 1300 85 3449

You can obtain further information about the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 and the protection of your personal information on the Australian Federal Government Commissioner’s website: www.privacy.gov.au