Policies That Cover Your Personal Data When Interacting With Us.

Vehicle Solutions Australia is committed to protecting the privacy of all individuals and organisations that we receive information from. We want to provide a safe and secure service to all who come in contact with us. We will take every step possible to ensure that your personal information will remain private unless otherwise agreed. Information that you have agreed to share will only be used for the purpose for which it was supplied.

The following statements, polices and information cover;

  1. How we collect personal information.
  2. What personal information we collect.
  3. How we use this information.
  4. Who we share this information with.
  5. How we protect your information.
  6. How we would handle a data breach.
  7. How you can access your information.
  8. How to make a complaint if we can’t resolve your issue.
  9. Additional resources available to ensure we are complying with all legal requirements.

How we collect Personal Information

We collect personal information directly from you, from other people and from organisations that utilise our online services.

We collect personal information when you:

  • enquire, apply for, or use one of our products or services
  • contact us to make an enquiry or provide feedback
  • visit our online services
  • participate in online marketing activities or surveys
  • talk to us or do business with us.

While we are required to collect some types of personal information to meet our legal obligations, we do attempt to keep our collection of your personal information to what is necessary to offer you the products and services you require.

What types of Personal Information do we collect?

Depending on the products and services, or the type of interaction your have with a member of our staff or a third party provider of our products and services, we may collect the following types of personal information:

  • Personal and contact details including your name, address, email address, phone number, and date of birth.
  • Australian Government related identifiers and identity documents; Tax File Number, Medicare card, Australian passport, driver licence, or pension card details, Security Holder Reference Number (SRN) or Holder Identification Number (HIN), citizenship, birth, death and marriage certificates (for example, to verify your identity), foreign passport and driver licence (for example, to verify your identity at the time you request a product or service).
  • Financial information; details of your employment, income, assets, financial liabilities, copies of bank statements and credit card statements from other financial institutions, information from third parties about your credit history and insurance claims history.
  • Credit information from credit reporting agencies.
  • Socio-demographic information; including your marital status, age, gender, number of dependents, occupation and nationality.
  • Digital information; We collect information from you electronically when you use our online services. This includes information such as; location information (if enabled on your device), IP address, details of the device used to access our digital services (including mobile and tablet), details of the wi-fi network or mobile network used by your device, type of authentication used (for example touch ID or face ID.
  • On rare occasions we may seek personal information about specific personal circumstances so that we can try to assist and support clients during any financial difficulties.
  • Publicly available information; information that is in the public domain, such as from; online forums, websites, social media platforms and public registers (for example, those kept by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission).
  • Privacy of Children – Collection of Information. None of our sites or services are intended for the use of children, we do not knowingly collect personal information from children especially those under the age of 16.

How do we use your information?

We are very careful about how we use your information in order to deliver all of our services. We also use your information for other reasons, such as to better understand you, your needs, and to let you know about other products and services that may maximise the benefits of all services we provide. For example we may use your information within the leasing/finance application to assist you in finding a vehicle at a better price, which will assist in reducing the cost of the finance and maximising your overall benefit. There are different reasons for using your information within our business including our related parties;

Offering and delivering our products and services including:

  • collecting, assessing and processing your application for all of our products and services
  • administer and manage existing products or services you have with us
  • manage our relationship with you or your employer/business
  • improve our service to you and your experience with us
  • communicate with you or your employer/representatives about our products and services
  • let you know about our other products and services that may be of assistance to you.

We use your information to manage our services, online platforms and third party relationships including to:

  • directly deliver our products and services to you
  • deliver and mange our products and services through third parties
  • make and manage client payments and transactions
  • collect and recover money that is owed to us
  • respond to complaints and seek to resolve them

We use your information to manage our legal responsibilities, including our regulatory obligations, which include the need to:

  • confirm your identity
  • share relevant information with law enforcement agencies, tax authorities and other regulatory bodies
  • screen applications and monitor accounts to identify criminal activity such as fraud, terrorist financing, bribery, corruption and money laundering
  • investigate and report financial crime.

We use your information to monitor and detect internet security issues or unauthorised access to our online platforms through;

  • detection, investigation of suspicious or fraudulent activities
  • support and management of our information security and network controls to prevent cyber-attacks, unauthorised access and other criminal or malicious activities.

We use your information for direct marketing of our products and services. This includes;

  • From time to time, we may also use your personal information to send you information about other products and services which we feel may assist you further in your vehicle ownership, that we think may be of interest and value to you. You always have the option to tell us to stop all marketing material, both physical and digital.
  • We may contact you by various means, including by mail, telephone, email, SMS or other electronic means, such as through social media or targeted advertising within our online platforms including our chat portal.
  • Social Media Platforms. If you interact with one of our social media sites/marketing, share content using social media share buttons, or access features of the Digital Services that contain content or features provided by Social Media Platforms, the relevant Social Media Platforms may collect information. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of the Social Media Platforms that you engage with as we are not responsible for their privacy practices.
  • Business Partners or Referral Partners. We may provide your information to business partners including, without limitation, joint marketing partners and content sponsors, for various purposes. For example, we may partner with a third party to offer products on a co-branded, co-sponsored or cross-promotional basis that involves the sharing of information. These initiatives may be offered on the Digital Services or on other media.
  • Advertisers, Advertising- and Marketing-Related Service Providers and Partners. We may provide your information to advertisers, advertising agencies, ad networks, ad exchanges, marketing businesses, technology vendors and other entities that create, deliver and assess advertising or marketing campaigns, including interest-based ads.

Who do we share your personal data with.

We share your personal data with third parties that can verify the information you have provided when applying for one of our products and services, this includes;

  • your employer, to verify your employment status
  • other banks and financial institutions that you may have products and services with.
  • commercially available third party databases
  • credit reporting bodies and credit providers.
  • vehicle insurers to provide you with competitive insurance products.
  • motor vehicle dealerships to be able to source competitive vehicle pricing and vehicle availability information.
  • finance brokers to provide more competitive or appropriate financial solutions.

We may share information with Authorised third parties where you have authorised us to do so or where we are legally required. They include:

  • third parties that you have authorised to act for you (such as accountants, financial counsellors, legal representatives, agents, finance brokers, financial advisors, or a person with Power of Attorney)
  • guarantors and other security providers.
We may share your information between members of the the Vehicle Solutions Australia Group of companies in order to provide you with the best vehicle ownership solutions. These companies include Motorbuys Pty Ltd and Mogo Pty Ltd.
We may share your information, with external parties with whom we have entered into strategic alliance or referral arrangements to enable you to inquire about the services or products they offer. A product refers to any offering of features and benefits to a Customer. This may include products that allow our clients to:
  • purchase a new or used vehicle;
  • sell a current vehicle,
  • borrow money via a novated lease, chattel mortgage, consumer vehicle finance or a personal loan,
  • manage (collect, hold and pay) vehicle running costs for clients with vehicle/s under a managed novated lease,

Sending your information overseas

We will never knowingly send your information overseas unless;

  • all or part of your employer is owned or managed by an overseas entity and require us to report and share information to be able to provide you with our products or services.
  • we are required to do so for legal or regulatory reasons.
  • to store data on cloud based servers such as AWS.

If we do this, we make sure there are appropriate privacy, data handling and security arrangements in place to protect your information.

How we keep your personal data safe.

Our staff are trained in how to keep your information safe and secure. We use secure systems and buildings to hold your information. We will only keep your information for as long as required. When we no longer need information, we take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify it.

We store your hard copy and electronic records in a secure office or through trusted third parties cloud based data storage. We use a range of physical, electronic and other security measures to protect the security, confidentiality and integrity of your personal data.

Data Breaches

A data breach happens when personal information is accessed, disclosed without authorisation or is lost. Under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, you must be told if a data breach is likely to cause you serious harm.

What is a Notifiable Data Breach

  • Under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, we have 30 days to identify, investigate and report on a data breach. We will always tell you if a data breach is likely to cause you serious harm.Examples of serious harm include:
    • identity theft, which can affect your finances and credit report.
    • financial loss through fraud
    • a likely risk of physical harm, such as by an abusive ex-partner
    • serious psychological harm
    • serious harm to an individual’s reputation

    We will also report this breach to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner .

    If the data breach is not likely to result in serious harm, we will make a decision in consultation with our IT team, Privacy Manager and company Directors to decide if we need to disclose the minor/non-harmful breach to you.

How we will contact you regarding a serious data breach

We may tell you about a data breach in an email, text message or phone call. The notification should include:

  • Our full name and contact details
  • the kinds of personal information involved in the breach
  • a description of the data breach
  • recommendations for the steps you can take in response

If we are not able to contact everyone, we will put the data breach notification on our website. We will also take measures to promote this data breach notification, through our social media, news articles and partnership marketing/advertisements.

IMPORTANT – If you think that a data breach may have affected your personal information and you think it may have been through the use of one of our products and services, please contact us as soon as possible (refer to our contact details below). Please provide us with as much detail as possible including the types of types of information your believe may have been accessed.

Accessing, updating and correcting your information

You can contact us at any stage to ask to view your personal information/data. If your information isn’t correct or needs updating, you can send us a written request via email to our privacy officer on [email protected] to update/correct the information. Your request will be completed as soon as possible and we will advise you once the updates or corrections are processed.

Our Internet Site and the Use of Cookies

We may also store information about you by using cookies. Cookies are files which are sent by us to your computer or mobile device, which we can access when you visit our site in future. We do this to understand how users interact with our site to ensure we always have the best user experience.

If you want to delete any cookies that are already on your computer, please refer to the instructions for your file management software to locate the file or directory that stores cookies. You always have the option to change your user settings to block cookies from our website.

Please note that by deleting or blocking future cookies you may not be able to access certain areas or features of our site.

Complaints and Privacy Resources

If you have a concern or complaint about how we have collected, handled or used your personal information, please contact us on the details below immediately and we will do our best to rectify the issue.

Vehicle Solutions Australia Privacy Officer can be contacted at;

1300 990 880 – 9am to 5pm Adelaide Time or email [email protected]

If you’re not satisfied with how we handled your complaint, you can lodge a dispute through the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), our external dispute resolution provider.

AFCA provides consumers and small businesses with fair, free and independent dispute resolution for financial complaints.

Australian Financial Complaints Authority

Visit: www.afca.org.au

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 1800 931 678 (free call)

Mail: Australian Financial Complaints Authority, GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001

You can also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner if your complaint is about your privacy or how we handled your credit information.

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

Visit: oaic.gov.au

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 1300 363 992

Mail: GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001

More Privacy Resources

For information on your rights and our responsibility in collecting and using your personal information please read;

  • Australian Privacy Principles – here
  • Australian Government Fact sheet that covers both the Privacy Act 1988 and the Privacy Amendment Act 2012 by clicking here.
  • Privacy Policy Fact sheet and requirements from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner – here
  • What is a consumer data right – here
  • Information on specific rights involving the provision of credit (loans, money lending…) – here
  • Data breaches – What are they and what is required by the organisation that has your data – here
  • Detailed information on internet scams – here

Updates to this policy

We will update this policy from time to time where necessary to reflect changes in applicable laws or in our privacy compliance practices. The latest version of this policy will always be available on our website.