Privacy Policy
Way Forward Debt Solutions is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your information. In accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), we have procedures and systems in place to protect your information. This Policy explains our obligations and your rights with respect to how we handle your information.
1. What information about you does Way Forward Debt Solutions collect and hold?
In the course of providing our service, we may collect the following information about you:
- Personal information – including your name, address, phone number and other information that can be used to identify you.
- Credit information – information about your financial situation, including your debts, your income and expenses and supporting documents.
- Sensitive information – a special category of ‘personal information’ that we only collect with your consent, or if otherwise permitted by law. This may include information about your personal circumstances or hardship.
2. Why do we collect your personal information?
We only collect information about you that is reasonably necessary in the course of providing our service. For example, we may collect information about you for the following purposes:
- To verify your identity
- To assess your financial situation
- To help manage your repayments
- To refer you to other services or support groups we think you may need
If we do not collect this information, we may not be able to provide our service to you.
3. How is personal information collected?
Where possible, we collect your information directly from you. However, in some circumstances, we may need to collect information about you from other sources – for example, from your creditors to confirm the amount of your outstanding debt with them.
When we collect your information we will, where appropriate and where possible, explain to you why we are collecting the information and how we plan to use it.
If we think you may not be aware that we have collected the information, we will take reasonable steps to make sure you are made aware that we have collected it, how we plan to use it and your rights under this Policy.
4. Use and disclosure of your information
We use and share your personal information only for the purposes for which we have collected it. In order to provide our service to you, we acquire specialised services from others and may disclose your information to them for the purpose of receiving those services. For example:
- To verify your identity, we may share your identity information to a credit reporting body or other document verification service to check that information with the relevant issuer or official record holder (for example, to check your driver licence with VicRoads or other state road authority).
- To help manage your repayment arrangements, we regularly report to each creditor on the payments you have made to us for distribution to that creditor.
- To store and archive our client files, we share your information with a third-party cloud storage provider.
We will only use or share your information with your consent or as authorised by law.
5. Security of your information
It is important to us that your information is kept secure. We take reasonable steps to make sure your information is protected from misuse, loss, interference or unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
When we no longer need your information for the purpose for which we have collected it, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify it. However, most of the information is stored in client files which we keep for a minimum of 7 years.
We train our staff about the requirements of the Privacy Act. We also have designated a Privacy Policy Officer in our team who is responsible for our overall compliance with the Privacy Act and this Policy.
6. Integrity of your information
We take reasonable steps to make sure that the information we have about you is accurate, complete, up-to-date, relevant and not misleading. You have the right to ask us for access to that information, or for a correction to that information. We will make sure to respond to your request within a reasonable time.
7. Complaints and queries
If you would like to exercise any of these rights or have any questions about this Policy or our privacy practices, please contact our Privacy Policy Officer at assist@wayforward.org.au.
8. Variations and availability of this Policy
This Policy may change from time to time. An updated version of this Policy is available on our website. More information about Australia’s privacy protection regime is available on the Australian Information Commissioner’s website at https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy-law/.
