The Lyne Network is committed to protecting your personal information and complying with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) ('Privacy Act') and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). The Lyne Network is an unincorporated association and is bound by the Privacy Act, as an organisation.

This document describes the policies and procedures that the Lyne Network (we/us) have in place for the management and protection of personal information that we collect and hold.

What personal information do we collect and hold?

We collect personal information from staff, contractors, volunteers, members, subscribers and from the public from a wide range of activities. For example, we may hold personal information in the following types of records:

• Personnel records
• Recruitment records
• Contractor information
• Statutory appointment information (e.g. Board members)
• Occupational Health and Safety records
• Subscription details
• Membership details
• Correspondence
• Complaint details.

These types of files held by us from time to time may include personal information such as:

• name, residential address, occupation, email address and telephone contact details
• opinions and reactions Lyne Network activities
• digital online footprints
• credit card or other personal financial details.

The personal information on some of these files may also include sensitive information, including information about a person’s race or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association, membership of a trade union, criminal record, health information.

How do we collect and hold personal information?

Where it is reasonably practicable to do so, we collect personal information directly from you. However, on occasions, we may need to collect personal information from other sources such as public records, parents or guardians of children under the age of 18 years and third parties. When dealing with children, we seek parental consent prior to the collection of personal information, including photographs.

We may collect personal information in various ways, including via:

• Online forms (such as subscription forms or registration forms for an event)
• Surveys (hard copy or online)
• Research projects;
• Information associated with accessing and using our website
• Over the telephone
• Via video call/conferencing platforms e.g. Zoom and their features e.g. chat functions
• In person in a meeting or interview scenario
• Via emails or other correspondence sent to us
• By taking photographs or videos at our events
• Third parties, for example reports from referees of prospective employees
• From publicly available information, such as interactions with us via social media sites or open source collection platforms.

For what purposes do we collect, hold and use personal information?

We only collect personal information for purposes directly related to our function and activities.

We may use or hold personal and sensitive information for the following general purposes:

• to manage our employees and contractors, including to consider prospective employees
• to manage our organisation, operational and security functions
• to maintain membership or subscriber records for our newsletters, general mailouts
• to promote and market our activities

From time to time, we may need to disclose personal information to operational partners or share information with contractors or agents who provide services to us, such as off-site file storage facilities and financial institutions which transmit payments on our behalf.

We will collect personal information from you for the purposes described in a collection notice and will only use or disclose your personal information for other purposes if:

• you have consented to the other use
• you would reasonably expect, or have been told, that your personal information is usually passed on to other entities
• it is required or authorised by law
• it will prevent or lessen a serious threat to someone’s life, health or safety (including public health and safety)
• required to take appropriate action in relation to suspected unlawful activity or serious misconduct
• required to locate a missing person
• required to assert a legal or equitable claim or to conduct an alternative dispute resolution process.

Set out below is some further detail of how we may use personal information collected for certain of our main activities.

When you visit our website

Cookies

A cookie is a small file containing a string of characters placed on your computer that uniquely identifies your browser. It is information that your web browser sends back to our website server whenever you visit it again. We use cookies to 'remember' your browser between page visits. In this situation, the cookie identifies your browser, not you personally. No personal information is stored within our cookies.

Some services that run on our sites, such as those provided by Google, Facebook and YouTube etc., may also create or read their own cookies on your browser.

Analytics

We may use Google Analytics to collect anonymised data about your interaction with our websites, which are hosted by a third party provider. We may also use our own analytics on our websites.

The types of data collected may include your IP address, browser and operating system, screen size, geographic location, search terms and pages visited, actions performed on pages, and date and time of webpage access. Where you provide your email address, that information may be linked to your interactions with the websites.

This data is collected for the purposes providing you with a better experience of, and improving our websites.

Emailing Lyne Network

When you send an email to a Lyne Network address (e.g. [email protected]), the content and your details, including your email address, become part of our records. Your email address, acquired in this way, will not be added to any mailing list unless specified in a collection statement or unless we obtain your consent.

Completing an online form

Should you decide to complete and submit an online form on any part of the our website, we:

• may record personal details provided by you such as; e-mail address, street address, telephone number, occupation, company, areas of interest etc. to the extent they are relevant to the purpose for which we are collecting them
• will only use this information for the purpose for which it was collected
• will not disclose this information without your consent except where we may be required by law to disclose the information.

Online forms and surveys hosted by third parties

We may use online forms and surveys which are hosted by third parties to facilitate our procedures or our network activities e.g. Google Forms or Survey Monkey. Where we use a third party for these purposes, we will ensure that the platform provider is subject to a law or binding scheme substantially similar to the APPs, including mechanisms for enforcement, we have sought your consent, or we have ensured appropriate contractual measurements are met.

Enquiries service

When you contact us for general information about our activities or about the network generally, we will:

• Log the contact (online or otherwise) in a secure database
• Record your name and other contact details, and information about the nature of the enquiry and response provided
• Record phone calls for the purpose of quality assurance and coaching
• Not add you to a mailing list, but may seek consent to contact you to provide feedback on the service provided
• Not disclose the information collected without your consent, except where we may be required by law to disclose the information.

Direct communication from us

We store the contact details of a wide range of members, supporters and stakeholders, ranging from direct subscribers, to business, research and community contacts. This information may be used to disseminate information and to facilitate participation in events and our activities. In managing this information, we will:

• hold all personal information in secure databases, both at onsite and offsite locations
• ensure that at any time, a recipient of e-mailed mass communication may ask to “unsubscribe” from our central marketing/communication database
• ensure that a direct link to “unsubscribe” is generally made available in mass communications from us. Alternatively, unsubscribe requests can be made directly to Enquiries.

Managing our personnel and other support services functions

We collects, use and disclose and handle personal and sensitive information to enable us to properly manage our business affairs, legal obligations and the employment, engagement and management of staff, volunteers, contractors, subcontractors and other persons relevant to us. These activities may include, but are not limited to:

• assessing suitability and/or eligibility for appointment/engagement
• compliance activities
• assessing staff/volunteer capability requirements and resourcing
• organisation development and improvement
• training, development, research and evaluation
• audit and assurance
• financial, legal, security, information technology and communications matters related to a staff member's employment or volunteer’s engagement
• the management, investigation and/or resolution of any issues that may arise during the course of an individual's employment or engagement, including workplace issues (whether conduct or non-conduct related), probation, medical-related issues, and work, health and safety matters
• managing natural disasters, health crises such as Covid-19, and other risks to staff members and volunteers
• business-related ‘due diligence’ assessments, including the viability or risk associated with doing business with an external individual or entity.

Engaging with the public about science

We collect personal information in the course of promoting and marketing our activities to the public, including via the following:

• Promotions/competitions
• Photographs of individuals taken at our events
• Collecting data about the public’s opinions on matters of importance to the network (e.g. feedback via social media)
• Sending marketing material to members
• maintaining membership or subscriber records.

How does we store personal information?

Each area of the Lyne Network that collects personal information stores that information securely on its IT systems. These systems are password protected and, where required, only certain people are authorised to access the information. We have record keeping codes specific to particular areas of our activity.

We may use third parties to store some personal information on servers and cloud services in Australia or overseas.

Access to and amendment of personal information held by us

We will provide you with access to your personal information that we hold, subject to any applicable exceptions under the Privacy Act. We will require you to verify your identity and specify, as clearly as possible, the information that you wish to access. We will not charge you for lodging a request for access to your own personal information but may charge for reasonable administrative costs. The fee will be determined on a case by case basis and you will be informed beforehand of the likely cost.

Any of our employees seeking their employment details should initially do so in accordance with our human resources processes. This also applies to volunteers.

If you can establish that information held by us about you is inaccurate, irrelevant, out of date, incomplete or misleading, we will take reasonable steps to amend the information. If we disagree with your view about the status of this information, we will provide reasons for the refusal and record a statement in our records of your view.

Complaints

If you have a privacy related complaint about us, please contact our Privacy Officer at [email protected].