Privacy policy
GovConnex Pty Ltd (ABN 33 629 740 932) (we, us or our) is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains how we collect, use and protect your personal information.
About this policy
This policy applies to all personal information we handle, whether we collect it through our website, in person, or through other means.
This policy takes into account the requirements of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, as well as the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 and the Information Privacy Principles. In addition to the Australian laws, individuals located in the European Union or European Economic Area (EU) may also have rights under the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679, and individuals located in the United Kingdom (UK) may have rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) (together, the GDPR).
The sections “If you’re in the EU or UK” and “Your rights in the EU and UK” below outline the additional rights of individuals located in the EU and UK, and how we process their personal information.
Quick overview: we collect information you provide to us and information we gather when we interact with you. We use this information to provide our services and improve your experience. We protect your information using secure systems and processes. You have rights regarding your personal information, including access and correction rights.
What we collect
Basic identifying and contact details: name, address, email address and phone number, and professional details.
Service related information: payment and transaction details for products and services you’ve purchased from us, your preferences for our services and your marketing preferences, and feedback and survey responses.
Digital information: IP address and general location information derived from your IP address, search and browsing behaviour, website usage patterns and cookie preferences.
Professional information (for job applicants and workers): employment history, professional experience, required authorisations and licences, and professional registrations.
Sensitive information: we handle sensitive information with extra care and protection, and we only collect this information with your consent or when legally permitted. This includes racial or ethnic origin (to provide culturally appropriate services), religious beliefs (when relevant), criminal record checks (if we need to verify your background before hiring you) and professional memberships (to assess the suitability for employment).
How we collect it: directly from you when you interact with us, contact us or fill out forms; automatically when you visit our website, use our technologies or interact with our online services; and from third parties, including service providers, business partners, public sources, government organisations and organisations or people authorised by you.
When you sign in through single sign-on: we receive your name and email address from your organisation’s identity provider.
When your organisation uses GovConnex, the contacts, notes and other material your team adds to its workspace are handled under your organisation’s agreement with us.
How we use it
We collect and use your personal information to run our business and provide our services as set out below.
Business operations: to manage our relationship with you as a customer or supplier; to process and deliver our products and services; to handle your inquiries, support requests and communications; to maintain accurate records for billing and administration; and to verify your identity when required or permitted by law.
Communication and support: to respond to your questions and support requests; to communicate important updates about our services; to handle inquiries made through our website or platforms; and to manage your participation in surveys, feedback sessions or events.
Service improvement: to conduct analytics and market research; to improve our business operations and services; to develop and enhance our applications and platforms; and to understand how our services are used.
Marketing and promotions: to send you promotional information about our services and events; to inform you about products or services that may interest you; to manage your marketing preferences; to run competitions, promotions and special offers; and to provide additional benefits to our customers.
Employment purposes: to assess employment applications; to evaluate candidate qualifications; to manage professional certifications and licences; and to maintain employment records.
Legal and compliance: to comply with our legal obligations; to respond to court orders or legal processes; to maintain required business records; to fulfil regulatory requirements or reporting obligations; and to protect our legal rights and interests or as authorised by law.
Artificial intelligence
We use artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies in our business operations and services, including AI tools provided by third parties. We only use these technologies when legally permitted and necessary for our business.
We may use AI technologies to conduct analysis and data processing; generate and modify content and coding; improve and optimise our services and operations; automate routine tasks and communications; personalise your experience with our services; support quality assurance processes; and assist with customer support and queries.
When we work with third-party AI providers, we ensure they handle your personal information in accordance with privacy laws through contractual requirements and appropriate safeguards.
Requests to the AI features in GovConnex are processed transiently by providers in the United States, with storage turned off at the provider. We never use customer data to train AI models.
Any information generated or inferred about you by AI technologies is treated as personal information, and you maintain all the rights outlined in this privacy policy.
When using AI with your personal information, we commit to transparency and control. We’ll inform you when AI is used to make decisions that may significantly affect you. We maintain human oversight and review of significant AI-generated decisions. Our staff are trained to understand AI limitations and verify outputs before relying on them, and we implement processes to verify the accuracy of AI-generated outputs.
We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to maintain the security and integrity of your personal information, and we regularly test and monitor AI outputs for accuracy and reliability.
We regularly assess and document risks associated with using AI to process personal information, implement appropriate measures to address these risks, and continuously monitor AI performance and regularly review its impact.
Where it’s held
We host GovConnex on Amazon Web Services. Data for Australian and New Zealand customers is held in Sydney (ap-southeast-2), and data for United Kingdom customers in London (eu-west-2). We don’t copy workspace data between regions.
Your information may be accessed from or transferred to locations outside Australia when our service providers are located overseas, when we work with overseas business partners, or when using cloud-based services or data storage solutions.
Requests to the AI features in GovConnex are processed transiently in the United States, as set out under Artificial intelligence above.
Before disclosing your personal information overseas, we take reasonable steps to ensure that the recipient treats your information in accordance with applicable law. We only send what is necessary. We require recipients to protect your information through contractual agreements which require the recipient to comply with the privacy standards in applicable law, or through other mechanisms that provide comparable safeguards. And we monitor how recipients handle your information.
How we protect it
We use multiple layers of security to protect your information.
Technical safeguards: enterprise-grade encryption for data storage and transmission, regular security testing and monitoring, and automated threat detection systems.
Data is encrypted at rest with AES-256, with keys managed in AWS Key Management Service, and in transit with TLS 1.2 or later. We back it up at least daily and keep backups for 30 days. There’s more on our Security page.
Operational security: staff training on security and privacy, strict access controls based on job requirements, and regular security audits and incident response procedures testing.
Physical security: secure premises with controlled access, secure disposal of physical documents, and equipment security protocols.
We follow the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). If a data breach is likely to result in serious harm to anyone whose personal information is involved, we will notify them and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
How long we keep it
We keep your personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes we collected it, or as required by law. When we no longer need it, we securely destroy or de-identify it.
When a customer’s contract ends, we keep its workspace data for 30 days so it can be exported, then delete it. Deleted data leaves our backups as they expire, within 30 days.
Your choices
Providing information: you can choose whether to provide personal information to us. However, if you don’t provide certain information, we may not be able to provide some services. Let us know if you don’t want to provide information and we will let you know when information is required versus optional.
Access: you can request access to the personal information we hold about you and we will respond to your request within a reasonable time. We may charge a reasonable administrative fee for providing access, and if we cannot provide access, we will explain why and explore alternative ways to share relevant information.
Correction: you can ask us to correct any information that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, and we will take reasonable steps to correct your information promptly. If we cannot make the correction, we will explain why and discuss alternatives. You can ask us to add a statement to your information noting your requested correction.
Marketing communications: you can opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time. Each marketing communication will include an unsubscribe option. You can change your marketing preferences by contacting us. We will process your request as soon as practicable.
Public information: any information you choose to share publicly on online platforms (such as comments or reviews) can be accessed and used by others. We cannot control or protect information that you make publicly available.
Cookies: how we use cookies, and how to control them, is set out in our Cookie policy.
If you’re in the EU or UK
Under the GDPR, individuals located in the EU and the UK have extra rights which apply to their personal information. Personal information under the GDPR is often referred to as personal data and is defined as information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (individual).
This section and the next set out the additional rights we give to individuals located in the EU and UK, and how we process their personal information. They apply to the personal information set out in this policy, including any sensitive information, which is known as ‘special categories of data’ under the GDPR.
We collect and process personal information about you only where we have legal bases for doing so under applicable laws. The table below describes the ways we plan to use your personal information, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
We may process your personal information for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please reach out to us if you need further details about the specific legal ground we are relying on where more than one ground has been set out in the table.
| Purpose of use or disclosure | Type of data | Legal basis for processing |
|---|---|---|
| To enable you to access and use our platform, including to provide you with a login. | Identity data; contact data | Performance of a contract with you |
| To assess whether to take you on as a new client, including to perform anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism, sanction screening, fraud and other background checks on you. | Identity data; contact data; background verification data | Performance of a contract with you; to comply with a legal obligation; public interest; legitimate interests: ensuring we do not deal with proceeds of criminal activities or assist in any other unlawful or fraudulent activities, for example terrorism |
| To work with you as a customer or supplier of our business, including to register your attendance at our events, assess your application etc. | Identity data; contact data | Performance of a contract with you |
| To contact and communicate with you about our business, including in response to any support requests you lodge with us or other enquiries you make with us. | Identity data; contact data; profile data | Performance of a contract with you |
| To contact and communicate with you about any enquiries you make with us via our website. | Identity data; contact data | Legitimate interests: to ensure we provide the best client experience we can offer by answering all of your questions |
| For internal record keeping, administrative, invoicing and billing purposes. | Identity data; contact data; financial data; transaction data | Performance of a contract with you; to comply with a legal obligation; legitimate interests: to recover debts due to us and ensure we can notify you about changes to our terms of business and any other administrative points |
| For analytics, market research and business development, including to operate and improve our business, associated applications and associated social media platforms. | Profile data; technical and usage data | Legitimate interests: to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business, improve our business and to inform our marketing strategy |
| For advertising and marketing, including to send you promotional information about our events and experiences and information that we consider may be of interest to you. | Identity data; contact data; technical and usage data; profile data; marketing and communications data | Legitimate interests: to develop and grow our business |
| To run promotions, competitions and/or offer additional benefits to you. | Identity data; contact data; profile data; interaction data; marketing and communications data | Legitimate interests: to facilitate engagement with our business and grow our business |
| If you have applied for employment with us, to consider your employment application. | Identity data; contact data; professional data | Legitimate interests: to consider your employment application |
| To comply with our legal obligations or if otherwise required or authorised by law. | To comply with a legal obligation |
Your rights in the EU and UK
If you have consented to our use of data about you for a specific purpose, you have the right to change your mind at any time, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place. Where we are using your data because we or a third party have a legitimate interest to do so, you have the right to object to that use though, in some cases, this may mean no longer doing business with us.
Data transfers: the privacy protections available in the countries to which we send data for the purposes listed above may be less comprehensive than what is offered in the country in which you initially provided the information. Where we transfer your personal information outside of the country where you are based, we will perform those transfers using appropriate safeguards in accordance with the requirements of applicable data protection laws, and we will protect the transferred personal information in accordance with this policy.
This includes only transferring your personal information to countries that have been deemed by applicable data protection laws to provide an adequate level of protection for personal information, or including standard contractual clauses in our agreements with third parties that are overseas.
Data retention: we will only retain your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal information for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.
Extra rights: you may request details of the personal information that we hold about you and how we process it (commonly known as a “data subject request”). You may also have a right in accordance with applicable data protection law to have your personal information rectified or deleted, to restrict our processing of that information, to object to decisions being made based on automated processing where the decision will produce a legal effect or a similarly significant effect on you, to stop unauthorised transfers of your personal information to a third party and, in some circumstances, to have personal information relating to you transferred to you or another organisation.
If you are not happy with how we are processing your personal information, you have the right to make a complaint at any time to the relevant Data Protection Authority based on where you live. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the Data Protection Authority, so please contact us in the first instance using the details under Contact us.
Contact us
To make a request about your personal information, or a complaint about how we have handled it, contact our privacy officer by email at privacy (at) govconnex.com, or by post at Level 2, 50 Bridge Street, Sydney NSW 2000.
In the United Kingdom, you can also write to us at 33 Queen Street, London EC4R 1AP.
Please include your full name, contact details, clear details about your request or complaint, and any relevant dates or reference numbers.
We will verify your identity before processing your request, investigate thoroughly (for complaints) or process your request (for rights), and respond to you in writing within reasonable timeframes. We will explain what actions we will take and keep you updated on progress. We will not charge you for making a request (except for reasonable access fees if applicable), and we will help you understand and exercise your rights.
If you’re not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you can ask for a review by our senior management, or contact an external body. In Australia, that is the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (phone 1300 363 992, www.oaic.gov.au). In New Zealand, it is the Office of the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner.
In the United Kingdom, it is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).
This is the same process whether you want to access your information, correct mistakes, change marketing preferences, or make a complaint about our privacy practices.
For anything else, email contact (at) govconnex.com.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy at any time by posting the revised version on our website. We recommend that you review our website regularly to stay current with any policy changes.