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Privacy Policy
PUBLIC PRIVACY STATEMENT

PFG Home Loans (PFG) understand how important it is to protect your personal information. Every time we collect or otherwise deal with your personal information, we will be regulated by the National Privacy Principles contained within the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). This document sets out our privacy policy commitment in respect of personal information that you may provide to us and informs you about how PFG will collect, hold, use, and disclose personal information of our customers or other individuals, how individuals can gain access to personal information held by us and how an individual may inquire about how we deal with personal information.

Collection of your personal information

We only collect your personal information where that personal information is necessary for one or more of our functions or activities. Depending on your relationship with us, this information may include, but is not limited to the following information: If you are applying for an PFG product or service, information such as: your name, address, employment details (including previous employment details), contact details, date and place of birth, sex, property and mortgage details, and information about your assets and liabilities; information we receive from consumer reporting agencies, such as your creditworthiness and credit history; and If you are applying for a position at PFG, information such as: your name, address, contact details, date and place of birth, sex, employment history, education details, health information, affiliations with various associations and any further information contained in resumes; When collecting this personal information, we will do so only by lawful and fair means and not in an unreasonably intrusive way. When collecting personal information about you which, for the purposes of the Privacy Act is regarded as sensitive information or health information, we will collect that information from you or from third parties only with your consent. At or before the time we collect personal information about you (or if that is not practicable, as soon as practicable thereafter), we will provide you with a statement outlining certain basic facts concerning us and our information handling practices as required by the Privacy Act. Where it is reasonable and practicable to do so, we will only collect personal information about you from you directly and not from third parties. However, in many instances, this will not be practicable. If we collect personal information about you from a third party then we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you receive the information that we are obliged to make you aware of. This may involve us contacting you directly, or a third party discharging our obligations on our behalf. We may collect certain information about you using cookies, whenever you access our site or the LightSpeed system. The personal information collected is only used for statistical purposes to monitor use of our site or the online system. Personal information collected in this manner is not used for any other purpose or to contact people directly.

Use and disclosure of your personal information

PFG collects, uses and discloses your personal information for a range of purposes. These purposes depend largely upon your relationship with us. We will use personal information for the primary purpose for which it was collected. The primary purpose of collection is the main reason we collect your personal information in the first instance. For a customer, the primary purpose may be for us to provide you with our products or services including the facilitation of the assessment of your application for finance and the subsequent provision of finance, for a job applicant it may be to assess your application. Generally speaking, PFG uses and discloses personal information for purposes such as: to assess your application for finance; to provide and maintain finance to you; for associated administrative purposes, such as billing and processing of your account; facilitating the conduct of business relationships with you; to provide you with details of the latest offers or specials in relation to PFG products and services; to investigate and resolve complaints concerning the provision of services by us or others associated with us; PFG contracts out various services associated with our functions and activities. This may involve the disclosure of your personal information to other persons and organisations, both within Australia and overseas. Where PFG does disclose your personal information to other parties it has in place arrangements or understandings with those third parties to ensure that your personal information is handled in a manner consistent with our obligations under this privacy policy. Where appropriate, we will ensure that your personal information is de-identified before being used or disclosed or destroyed or de-identified if it is no longer necessary that it be retained. The types of persons and organisations to which PFG may disclose your personal information include the following: organisations with whom we have arrangements or agreements for the purpose of promoting our products or services and any agents used by us in administering such arrangements or agreements; our agents, contractors and external advisers who carry on our functions and activities or who assist us to carry on our functions and activities from time to time; other parties necessarily involved in the provision of finance to you such as solicitors and accountants (PFG's and an individual's), mortgage insurers, credit reporting agencies, general insurers, conveyancers, valuers, debt collecting agencies and government authorities; and other parties to whom we are authorised or required by law to disclose information.

Requests for access to and correction of your personal information

You may request details of the personal information we hold about you, by writing to or contacting us at any time. No fee will be charged for making the request. We may however charge a fee for the provision of this information to cover administrative costs. We will inform you of any fee at the time a request is made. In general, we will allow access to the personal information we hold about you. However, we may deny access to personal information to you to the extent that: providing access would pose a serious threat (or in the case of personal information other than health information, a serious and imminent threat) to the life or health of any individual; or providing access would have an unreasonable impact upon the privacy of other individuals; or your request for access is frivolous or vexatious; or it is otherwise appropriate for us to deny access in accordance with the Privacy Act. We will not deny you access to any personal information following an access request without providing you with a reason for the denial. Where providing access would reveal evaluative information generated within PFG in connection with a commercially sensitive decision-making process, we may give you an explanation for the commercially sensitive decision rather than direct access to the information. If you are aware that any of your personal information is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date following an access request, or because your circumstances have changed, please inform us so that we can update our records. We will correct any incorrect personal information and will not refuse to make a correction without providing you with a reason for the refusal. However, if we do refuse to make a correction, we will take reasonable steps to place with the disputed information a statement from you claiming that the disputed information in your opinion is not accurate, complete or up-to-date.

Changes to the privacy policy statement

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 practice. As a consequence we may change this privacy policy from time to time or as the need arises.

Inquiries

If you have any concerns or inquiries about how we deal with your personal information, you should contact us. All correspondence should be directed to:

PFG HOMELOANS
Legal department
18 /1 Princess Street
St Albans
Victoria -3021