Cogent Business Solutions Pty Ltd (Cogent) is committed to maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of personal information. Cogent adheres to the Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs”) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act”) when collecting, using, disclosing, securing and providing access to personal information.
This policy details the practices we have adopted to protect your privacy so that you can feel confident about how we manage the personal information you entrust to us.
When do we collect personal information?
Personal information is any information that can be used to identify you. We collect personal information (including contact name, telephone number, address, email address, occupation, education and qualifications etc) in a range of contexts:
- when entering into relationships with new clients
- when individuals apply directly for employment with us
- when individuals register online for employment with us
- when the information is required as part of a contract essential to the provision of a business service
We will notify you about the collection of personal information at or before the time we collect it, or if that is not practicable, as soon as practicable after personal information about you has been collected.
What do we do with personal information?
We may use personal information:
- to enable us to provide capability and services to our clients
- to deliver services in accordance with Australian government policies such as the Government Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF)
- to communicate information about our services
- for our internal administrative, planning, product development and research requirements
- to consider the suitability of applicants for employment with us
As part of the provision of services, we may outsource some of our functions to third parties which may involve the disclosure of personal information. These third parties will not be permitted to use the information for purposes other than for which the information is disclosed.
Apart from this, your personal information is never shared, sold, rented or otherwise disclosed except if required by law or with your consent. Cogent is not likely to disclose personal information to overseas parties.
At any time you may opt-out of receiving any communications from us (other than as required for the operation of our business e.g. regarding payment of accounts).
What do we do to safeguard personal information?
We will take all reasonable steps to maintain the security of any personal information we receive. We use a variety of secure techniques to protect your information, including secure servers, locked file cabinets, firewalls and encryption.
We will only keep your personal information when we consider it necessary for one of the purposes you have disclosed it. If we consider that it is no longer necessary to keep your personal information, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify your personal information.
Access and Correction
On request, you may access any personal information we hold about you at any time. Cogent is not required to give you access to the personal information to the extent that:
a) Cogent believes that giving access would pose a serious threat to the life, health or safety of any individual, or to public health or public safety; or
b) Giving access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of other individuals; or
c) The request for access is frivolous or vexatious; or
d) The information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings between Cogent and you, and would not be accessible by the process of discovery in those proceedings; or
e) Giving access would reveal the intentions of Cogent in relation to negotiations with the individual in such a way as to prejudice those negotiations; or
f) Giving access would be unlawful; or
g) Denying access is required or authorised by or under an Australian law or a court/tribunal order; or
h) Both of the following apply;
i) Cogent has reason to suspect that unlawful activity, or misconduct of a serious nature, that relates to Cogent’s functions or activities has been, is being or may be engaged in;
ii) Giving access would be likely to prejudice the taking of appropriate action in relation to the matter or
i) Giving access would be likely to prejudice one or more enforcement related activities conducted by, or on behalf of, an enforcement body; or
j) Giving access would reveal evaluative information generated within Cogent in connection with a commercially sensitive decision-making process.
Cogent will respond to any request for access to personal information within 30 days after the request is made.
If your personal information changes or if you no longer require our services, we will take reasonable steps to correct, update or remove the personal data you have provided to us
We will respond to any request for access to, or correction of, your personal information as soon as practicable after the request is made.
Links
Websites operated by us may contain links to other sites operated by third parties. We make no representations or warranties as to the privacy practices of any third-party site and are not responsible for the privacy policies of other sites.
Future Changes to Our Privacy Policy
We may change this policy from time to time and will notify you by posting an updated version of this policy on this website. This document represents our policy as at 16 August 2018.
Contacting Us
If you have any questions about our privacy policy, or any complaint regarding the treatment of your privacy by us, please email our Business Manager at admin@cogent.com.au, telephone us on 61 2 6152 9222 or write to us at:
Cogent Business Solutions
PO Box 140
FYSHWICK ACT 2609