1. INTRODUCTION

The Victorian Riichi Mahjong Association (ABN 38 644 152 447) (‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’) is committed to protecting your privacy and the confidentiality of any personal information we collect. We value honesty and transparency and want you to know what we’ll do with your personal information.

We collect, use, disclose and otherwise handle your personal information or sensitive information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) which are contained in the Privacy Act 1998 (Cth) (Privacy Act).

You indicate that you accept the terms of this Privacy Policy (as amended from time to time) by accessing our website, services or otherwise providing us with your personal information. Please regularly review our Privacy Policy so that you are aware of changes.

For the purposes of applicable data protection law, (in particular, the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (the “GDPR”) and the UK Data Protection Act 2018), your data will be controlled by us.

This privacy policy applies whenever we collect your personal information and/or personal data (your personal data). This includes between you, the visitor to this website (whether directly as our customer or as personnel of our customer), and us, the owner and provider of this website and also where we are directed by a third party to process your personal data. This privacy policy applies to our use of any and all data collected by us or provided by you in relation to your use of the website and the provision of our services to you.

2. TYPES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

The types of personal information or sensitive information we collect about you will depend on the type of dealings you have with us. We have set out below what we collect and in what circumstances.

If you are:

  • A site visitor, or participating in our surveys, or interacting with us on social media, or sending us an enquiry, or making a complaint or providing feedback:

    • We may collect the following personal information: Name, mailing or street address, email address, contact number, social media information, information about your business or personal circumstances, information in connection with any client surveys, questionnaires and promotions you participate in, or information about third parties.

  • Registering as a member

    • We may collect the following personal information: Name, mailing or street address, email address, contact number, and social media information.

  • Registering as an event participant

    • We may collect the following personal information: Name, age, email address, contact number, and social media information, and any other information that may be relevant for the event.

3. WHAT IF YOU DO NOT PROVIDE US WITH YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

In some circumstances, where it is possible, we allow you the option of not identifying yourself, or of using a pseudonym, when dealing with us (for example, when viewing our website or making general queries or participating in our ‘anonymous’ surveys).

4. HOW WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION

We endeavour to ensure that information we collect is complete, accurate, accessible and not subject to unauthorised access.

We may collect personal information either directly from you, or from third parties, including:

  • through our websites (for example, if you choose to contact us, or if you choose to register as a member or pay for goods or services through our secure payment gateway);

  • when you correspond with us (for example, by making an enquiry by email or telephone or providing us with instructions);

  • when you engage us to perform services or provide goods to you, including by signing up as a member or registering to attend an event;

  • in person (for example, at a meetup);

  • from referring third parties (for example, other groups or referrals providing you with assistance);

  • via social media;

  • at events and forums including any training, workshops, or conventions we provide, and

  • from third parties such as the police, courts, or other registries based in Australia.

We may also collect personal data from you when you use or access our website or our social media pages. This may be done through use of web analytics tools, ‘cookies’ or other similar tracking technologies that allow us to track and analyse your website usage.

5. COOKIES

When you access our websites, we or our third-party service providers may use “cookies”.

We may also gather your IP address as part of our business activities and to assist with any operational difficulties or support issues with our services. This information does not identify you personally.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small data files stored in your device’s memory that do not, of themselves, identify individuals personally but do identify devices.

What cookies do we use and why?

Cookies help us to provide customised services and information. For example, to allow us to:

  • maintain the continuity of your browsing session;

  • remember your details and preferences when you return;

  • use Google Analytics and HotJar to collect information such as demographics and interests, visits to our websites, length of visit and pages viewed and interaction with YouTube videos you access from our site;

We generally use cookies on our websites for the following purposes:

  • Where necessary: These cookies are necessary for the basic functions of the website, and the website will not work in its intended way without them. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

  • Functionality: These cookies help to perform certain functionalities. For example, recognising a user that has visited the website before, or remembering any preferences previously selected, such as preferred language or location.

  • Analytics: These cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

  • Performance: These cookies are used to understand and analyse the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for visitors.

How can you control your cookie preferences?

You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie and this will provide you with an opportunity to either accept or reject it in each instance. Please note that if you do this, it may affect some of the functions on our websites.

Third party cookies

When you visit our website, you may receive cookies that are set by third parties. For example, you may receive a cookie set by Google Analytics.

We do not control the setting of these third-party cookies, so we suggest you might wish to check the third-party website for more information about their use of cookies and how to manage them.

6. WHY WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION AND HOW WE USE IT

We collect and use personal data for the following purposes:

(a) to provide services or information to you;

(b) for record keeping and administrative purposes;

(c) to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes or enforce our agreements with third parties;

(d) where we have your consent, including to send you marketing and promotional messages and other information that may be of interest to you. In this regard, we may use email, SMS, social media or mail to send you direct marketing communications. You may choose at any time to opt-out of receiving materials from us by using the opt-out facility provided (e.g. an unsubscribe link);

(e) for our legitimate interests including:

(i) to develop and carry out marketing activities and to conduct market research and analysis and develop statistics;

(ii) to improve and optimise our service offering and customer experience;

(iii) to send you administrative messages, reminders, notices, updates and other information requested by you; and

(iv) the delivery of our services.

7. WHO WE DISCLOSE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO

We may share your personal data in certain circumstances, as follows:

(a) disclosures required by law or regulation; and

(b) service providers and other affiliated third parties to enable us to provide our services to you including other professional advisers such as accountants, disaster recovery service providers or auditors and/or overseas counsel.

8. STORAGE AND SECURITY OF THE INFORMATION WE HOLD

We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal data is secure and protected from misuse or unauthorised access. Our information technology systems are password protected and use multi-factor authentication, and we use a range of administrative and technical measures to protect these systems. We use a secure online payment gateway to process any online financial transactions.

The steps we take to ensure the personal information we collect and hold is protected from misuse, interference and loss, as well as unauthorised access, modification or disclosure include:

  • website protection measures (such as encryption, firewalls and anti-virus software)

  • access restrictions to our computer systems requiring multi-factor identification (such as login and password protection), and

  • restricted access to our office premises and files containing personal information.

While we strive to protect the personal information and privacy of users of our website, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure and any information that you disclose online is disclosed at your own risk.

9. LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

Our website may contain links to other websites that are not operated or controlled by us and are provided for your convenience. We are not responsible for the privacy or security practices of those websites. Third party websites should have their own privacy and security policies, which we encourage you to read before supplying any personal information to them.

10. YOUR RIGHTS

You have various rights with respect to our use of your personal data:

(a) Access: You have the right to obtain access to your information (if we’re processing it) and certain other information (similar to that provided in this privacy notice). This is so that you’re aware and can check that we’re using your information in accordance with data protection law. We may charge a fee to cover reasonable costs of locating, retrieving, sending (including posting) the personal information to you.

(b) Be informed: You have the right to be provided with clear, transparent and easily understandable information about how we use your information and your rights. This is why we’re providing you with the information in this privacy policy.

(c) Rectification: We aim to keep your personal data accurate, current, and complete. We encourage you to contact us using our contact form to let us know if any of your personal data is not accurate or changes, so that we can keep your personal data up-to-date.

(d) Objecting: You also have the right to object to processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, including processing for direct marketing.

(e) Restricting: You have the right to ‘block’ or suppress further use of your information. When processing is restricted, we can still store your information, but may not use it further.

(f) Erasure: You have the right to ask us to erase your personal data when the personal data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or when, among other things, your personal data have been unlawfully processed.

(g) Portability: You have the right to request that some of your personal data is provided to you, or to another data controller, in a commonly used, machine-readable format.

(h) Complaints: If you believe that your data protection rights may have been breached, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the applicable supervisory authority. In the UK, the supervisory authority is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

(i) Withdraw consent: If you have given your consent to anything we do with your personal data, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. This includes your right to withdraw consent to us using your personal data for marketing purposes.

You may, at any time, exercise any of the above rights, by contacting our email address provided below.

11. HOW LONG WE KEEP DATA

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. We will securely destroy your personal data in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

If you would like further information about our specific retention periods for your personal data, please contact us using our email address provided below.

12. TRANSFERS OUTSIDE THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA (‘EEA’)

To provide our services, we may transfer the personal data we collect to countries outside of the UK or EEA which do not provide the same level of data protection as the country in which you reside and are not recognised by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of data protection.

When we do this, we will make sure that it is protected to the same extent as in the EEA and UK as we will put in place appropriate safeguards to protect your personal data, which may include standard contractual clauses.

For more information, please contact us at our email address provided below.

13. CONTACT US

If you have any questions or feedback about this policy or the way in which we handle personal information you can contact us on the details below. You can also request a hard copy of this policy using the details below. 

Email: hello@vicriichi.org

We may change this privacy policy from time to time by posting an updated copy on our website and we encourage you to check our website regularly to ensure that you are aware of our most current privacy policy. Where we make any significant changes, we will endeavour to notify you by email.

14. COMPLAINTS

If you have a complaint about how we have collected or handled your personal information, please contact us using the details provided under the heading ‘Contact.’

If you have a privacy complaint, you can get in touch with us via email.

We will endeavour to respond to your complaint within 30 days of receipt of your complaint (while complex cases may take longer to resolve, we will keep you updated on the progress of your complaint).

If you are unhappy with our response, you can refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (see details below) or, in some instances, other regulatory bodies, such as the Victorian Health Complaints Commissioner or the NSW Health Complaints Commissioner.

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner Online:
www.oaic.gov.au/about-us/contact-us
Phone: 1300 363 992 (Australia) or +61 2 9284 9749 (International)
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Fax: +61 2 9284 9666
Post: GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001