Privacy Policy

LAST UPDATED: 31/07/2024

Introduction

At Global Retail Brands Australia Pty Ltd ACN 006 348 205 (“we” “us” or “our”) your privacy is important to us. We are committed to protecting your privacy when managing your personal information. We have policies and procedures to ensure that all personal information is handled carefully in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act”).

Collection of information

Types of Personal Information We Collect

The types of information that we collect from you will depend on the circumstances of collection and on the service that we are providing to you. The information may include:

·       Name and contact information such as phone numbers, postal address and email address;

·       Identifiers and other contact information, IP address, social media usernames, passwords and other security information for authentication and access;

·       Preference information, such as your marketing preferences, and brand and merchandise interests;

·       Payment information such as payment method and details;

·       User data and profile and account information, which may include purchase, and preference information as well as your account password, items in your online shopping cart or saved for future purchase, product review information, other information about your profile or account and audio and video footage captured in-store;

·       Communications and interactions, which may include email messages, chat sessions, text messages, and phone calls that we exchange with you;

·       Demographic information, which may include age or birthdate, gender, ZIP or post code and other information about you;

·       Information provided where you apply for employment with us;

·       Call recordings, including information about your call and that you share when you call us on the phone;

·       Location or geolocation information such as IP address, browser information or mobile GPS information;

·       Internet or other electronic activity: which may include your browsing and click history, including information about how you navigate within our services and which elements of our services you use the most;

·       Log data and device information such as details about how you have used the site, IP address, access dates and times, hardware and software information; and

·       Cookies and similar technologies such as web beacons, pixels and mobile identifiers; and Inferences drawn from the categories described above in order to create a profile about you to reflect your preferences, characteristics, behaviour and attitude.

How We Collect Personal Information

We may collect your personal information, where:

·       you provide information directly to us via our website or Facebook page or in store including where you register for a House account;

·       you make a purchase or request products or services from us, including the purchase of a Gift Card;

·       you sign up to use a particular service such as our newsletter(s) and e-newsletters, mail outs or subscriber list (about product updates and developments, special events or promotions), loyalty or rewards program(s) or enter into a competition operated by us;

·       you participate in any surveys we, or a third-party service provider acting on our behalf, may conduct from time to time on our Website;

·       you make an inquiry, provide feedback or make a complaint to us, including by telephone or via our Website;

·       you are applying for employment with us;

·       you voluntarily submit your personal information to us for any reason; or

·       we obtain information from third-party sources such as third-party service providers (for example, data relating to survey responses) and where we obtain the information through our related bodies corporate.

How much of your personal information that you choose to disclose to us is completely up to you. However, failure to provide certain information may result in us being unable to provide you with the relevant product or service.

You acknowledge that the personal information we collect from you is your own information or information which you have been authorised to provide us.

Cookies

We make use of cookies on our Website which may collect and store personal information. A cookie is a small software message sent to your web browser by our web server. Your browser stores the message in a file and the message is then sent back to our servers each time your browser requests a page from our servers. We use cookies to gain statistics on site traffic, track affiliate publisher referrals and improve and personalise your experience of our Website. In addition, we make use of third-party services who use cookies, web beacons or other storage technologies to serve target ads based on past visits to our Website.

Most internet browsers are set up to accept cookies. If you do not wish to receive cookies, you will need to adjust the settings of your browser to refuse all cookies or to notify you each time a cookie is sent to your computer. By using our Website, you consent to the use of cookies. You may choose to decline cookies, however as a result you may not be able to fully experience our online services.

Third-Party Websites and Analytics

We use Google Analytics, Facebook and other third-party companies to collect usage data, analyse how our Website is used for improved efficiency and usability of our Website and to provide advertisements to you on other websites. These companies may use information collected during your visits to our stores (including geolocation services and purchase information), as well as to our Website and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of interest to you. These companies may also tie identifiers associated with a particular browser or device to identifiers associated with other browsers or devices used by the same user or household (e.g., a device identifier associated with a user's computer may be tied to the device identifiers of that user's tablet and phone) in order to measure and target advertisements tailored to user interests across their devices and to send personalized marketing communications. These companies typically use a cookie or third-party web beacon to collect this information.

When you use our Website, Google and Facebook handle your information in the manner described in their respective privacy policies (see Google's Privacy Policy and Facebook’s Privacy Policy). You can opt out of Google Analytics if you disable or refuse the cookie, disable JavaScript, or use the opt-out service provided by Google. If you want to opt-out of seeing advertisements on Facebook based on information received from other websites, you can control this in your Facebook Ad Preferences.

Anonymous information

We may also collect anonymous information about visitors to our Website(s). For example, we may collect:

·       statistical information about the number of visitors to the Websites and the date, time and duration of visits;

·       the name of the domain/URL from which you access our Websites;

·       the internet protocol address.

However, we do not collect information about the identity of the visitors unless they voluntarily provide that information.

Use of information

Generally, we will use your personal information for the following purposes:

·       providing the products and/or services you have requested from us including for example:

·       to process sales transactions (whether in store or online);

·       to issue a receipt (including a digital receipt in lieu of a paper receipt for an in-store purchase, if you opt to receive it electronically);

·       to deliver the products or services to you;

·       to register you for a service requested by you, such as our newsletter(s) and e-newsletters, mail outs, rewards program(s) or competitions and administering such services;

·       to manage warranty claims;

·       to process refunds; and

·       to respond to any inquiries, feedback or complaints made by you; and

·       for other administrative purposes including charging and billing, detecting or assessment of payment eligibility;

·       direct marketing of products and services which we believe may interest you, including product updates and developments, special events or promotions;

·       displaying star ratings and customer reviews within product pages;

·       for security and fraud prevention purposes to protect this Website, our company and others, and to detect or prevent fraud, theft and misconduct;

·       assisting us to improve our products and services and making them more relevant to you;

·       to enforce our Terms and Conditions or comply with this Privacy Policy;

·       comply with our legal obligations and assist government and law enforcement agencies or regulators and as otherwise may be permitted by applicable law;

·       assisting us to improve our Website(s) or Facebook page;

·       processing and assessing employment applications for current and future positions; and

·       otherwise managing our internal business operations and processes.

Direct marketing

We will only use your personal information for the purpose of direct marketing activities where we have obtained your consent to do so, or in circumstances where we have collected the information directly from you and you would reasonably expect that your personal information would be used or disclosed for this purpose. We may provide you with information and to tell you about our products, services or events or any other direct marketing activity which we believe may be of interest to you, whether by post, email, phone SMS or other messaging applications and also targeting and online marketing and advertising. We may also share your personal information with our related or affiliated entities and/or use it to promote our other product brands and businesses (including MyHouse, Robins Kitchen, Baccarat, Bessemer and Pet House), so that they can provide you directly with marketing material about their products and services.

Opt Out

We will always provide you with the opportunity to opt out of direct marketing communications. If you would like to opt out from direct marketing, simply unsubscribe using the link or opt-out facility in the marketing communication sent to you, by advising us if you receive a marketing call that you no longer wish to receive these calls or contacting our Privacy Officer via the contact details provided below.

Use of anonymous information

We gather anonymous information to:

·       monitor the use of our Website(s);

·       help us make improvements to the Website(s); and

·       offer relevant information and services to as many users as possible.

Disclosure

There will be occasions where it will be necessary for us to disclose your personal information to third parties.

We may disclose your personal information to:

·       contractors and third-party service providers on a confidential basis that we use in the ordinary course of our business to assist with the delivery of our products or services. This includes organisations such as marketing agencies, data processing companies, printing and mailing houses, delivery companies. data storage companies (which may use cloud computing storage systems which have the potential to make your personal information accessible by overseas entities) our online payment gateway service providers, other third-party software providers, finance agencies or debt collection agencies;

·       other members of our corporate group;

·       government authorities or other third parties as required by law; or

·       any other purpose that you have consented to.

We may also disclose your personal information to third parties outside our group of companies:

·       where we have your express permission to do so;

·       where it can reasonably be inferred from the circumstances that you consent to the disclosure to the third parties; or

·       if any one, or all of, our product brands, businesses, or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal information which we hold about our customers may be one of the transferred assets (subject to the same constraints on use and disclosure as under this policy).

Transfer of information outside Australia

We may transfer your personal information to our related entities and third-party service providers based in countries including Canada, Ireland, Philippines, Singapore and the USA. From time to time, this list of countries may change. We may also transfer your personal information to service providers who will hold your information on a cloud computing system which may hold your data on servers located outside of Australia. However, where your personal information is disclosed to an overseas recipient or a cloud computing system, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is handled in accordance with the APPs, the Privacy Act and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. By providing us with your personal information, you consent to your personal information being stored or sent overseas for the purposes set out in this Policy.

Otherwise than stated above, we do not disclose personal information that you may give us to any organisation or person outside of us unless you have authorised us to do so.

No sale of personal information

Under no circumstances will we sell or receive payment for licensing or disclosing your personal information, except as part of a sale or transfer of our business or assets.

Security

The security of your information is important to us. We have implemented generally acceptable standards of technology and operational security to ensure personal information (in both physical and electronic form) is protected against loss, misuse, interference and unauthorised access.

You should be aware that the internet is not a secure environment and information sent via the internet (including email) cannot be guaranteed to be totally secure. Any such transmission is at your own risk.

Data quality, access and correction

Access

If you are a subscriber to one of our online services or products or loyalty programs, you may access your personal information by accessing your subscriber/account details via the relevant facility on our Websites.

Otherwise, you may at any time, request access to personal information that we hold about you by making a request to our Privacy Officer at the address or email address below.

We will endeavour to process any requests for access to personal information within a reasonable period of time. Where possible, we will provide you with access to that information either by providing you with copies of the information requested, allowing you to inspect the information requested, or providing you with a summary of the information held. If we need to deny your request for access we will let you know why and inform you how you may lodge a complaint regarding this decision. Generally this will only be in cases where providing access would be unlawful or is subject to a potential legal claim or proceeding.

We may charge a nominal fee for supplying personal information.

Correction

We will try to ensure that all information we collect, use or disclose about you is accurate, complete, up-to-date and relevant to the service being provided. If you are a subscriber to one of our online services or products, you may change your personal information by accessing your subscriber/account details via the relevant facility on our Website(s).

Otherwise, if you discover or suspect that there is an error or information is missing, please forward your request for correction to our Privacy Officer in writing at the address or email address below. Our Privacy Officer will consider your request and as soon as practicable manage the correction of your personal information and will update you in writing. If your correction request is refused, our Privacy Officer will provide you within a reasonable period of time the reasons for such refusal and inform you of the complaint process (see below).

Concerns and complaints

If you have any complaints relating to the management of your personal information or if you believe there has been a breach of the APPs by us, please forward your complaint in writing to our Privacy Officer at the address or email address below.

Our Privacy Officer will consider the complaint and advise you of their decision in writing within a reasonable time from receipt of the complaint. If our Privacy Officer decides that there has been a breach of the APPs, s/he will endeavour to ensure that the breach is rectified within 30 days from the date of the decision and will update you in writing. If the breach has not been rectified within 30 days, then our Privacy Officer will inform our Managing Director in order to resolve the matter.

If you are still not satisfied after lodging a complaint with us and giving us a reasonable time to respond, then we suggest that you contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by:

Phone: 1300 363 992 (local call cost, but calls from mobile and pay phones may incur higher charges). If calling from overseas (including Norfolk Island): +61 2 9284 9749 TTY: 1800 620 241 (this number is dedicated to the hearing impaired only, no voice calls.) TIS: Translating and Interpreting Service: 131 450 (If you don’t speak English or English is your second language and you need assistance and ask for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner)

Post: GPO Box 2999 Canberra ACT 2601
 Fax: +61 2 9284 9666
 Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au

Contact our Privacy Officer

Please contact our Privacy Officer on the contact details below if you would like to:

·       inquire about or request access and/or update your personal information; or

·       opt out from receiving direct marketing communications from us or our related businesses; or

·       report an alleged breach of your privacy rights or make a complaint; or

·       talk to our Privacy Officer about our Privacy Policy

Please contact:

Post: Privacy Officer, Global Retail Brands Australia Pty Ltd, Level 2 425 St Kilda Road Melbourne VIC 3004
 Telephone: 1300 136 936
 Facsimile: (03) 9863 2380
 E-mail: privacyofficer@house.com.au

Links to Third-Party Websites

Our websites may contain links to websites operated and maintained by third parties, over which we have no control. Privacy policies on such linked websites may be different from our privacy policy. You access such linked websites at your own risk. You should always read the privacy policy of a linked website before disclosing any of your information on such website.

Variation

As part of our efforts to ensure that we properly manage, protect and process your personal information, changes may be made to this Privacy Policy from time to time. Such changes will be available on our Website and you are encouraged to visit the above Website regularly to ensure that you are well-informed of our latest policies in relation to the handling of your personal information. When we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by posting the updated Policy on our website, and we will update the effective date by referring to the legend at the top of this Privacy Policy.

By continuing to use our Website and/or purchase our goods and services after the Privacy Policy has been amended, you hereby agree to be bound by the terms of such amended Privacy Policy.  If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, as it may be amended from time to time, in whole or part, you must terminate your use of the Website.

Miscellaneous

“Personal information” has the same meaning as in the Privacy Act.

“Website(s)” refers to all websites we own, operate or control including www.house.com.au www.myhouse.com.au www.robinskitchen.com.au www.baccarat.com.au & www.bessemer.com.au