This privacy policy applies to the services offered by Risk and Investment Advisors Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 21 104 922 394) (“RIAA”) and its Authorised Representatives.

As your nominated Financial Advisor, we respect the importance of your privacy. This statement outlines RIAA’s policy on how we manage the personal information we hold about you, our customer.

It is RIAA’s policy to respect the confidentiality of information and the privacy of individuals. RIAA is bound by the National Privacy Principles contained in the Commonwealth Privacy Act.

RIAA’s Privacy Policy Statement will be reviewed from time to time to take into account new laws and technology, changes to our operations and practices and to make sure it remains appropriate to the changing environment. Any information we hold will be governed by the most current RIAA Privacy Policy Statement.

Privacy Considerations

Keeping records about individuals is necessary and important. The information given to RIAA by its clients is frequently of a confidential nature. Without this information however, it would be difficult to assess a customer’s needs. It is imperative that such information be treated confidentially. Both the general and common law impose confidentiality obligations on organisations such as RIAA which in some respects are similar to those which exist with solicitor / client relationships. RIAA supports these principles and has processes in place to respect them.

The legislation contains principles that include the following:

• Personal information must only be collected for a purpose which is lawful, and which directly relates to a function or activity of the collector;
• The collection of that personal information must be necessary for, or directly related to that purpose;
• The collector must tell the individual concerned of the purpose for which the information is being collected;
• If the collector intends to pass the information to another party, the person providing the information must be told this.
• Any information collected should be relevant, up-to-date where appropriate, and complete; and
• Once collected, the personal information must be protected by appropriate safeguards against loss, and also against unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure to unauthorised or inappropriate persons, and other misuse.

RIAA’S Privacy Policy

RIAA support and abide by the following ten National Privacy Principles outlined in the Act.

1. Collecting personal information about you

RIAA is committed to safeguarding your personal privacy. We recognise that you have a right to control how your personal information is collected and used. We know that providing personal information is an act of trust and we take that seriously. Unless you directly give us consent to do otherwise, RIAA will only collect and use your personal information contained within the Confidential Client Data Questionnaire and file notes for the purpose of providing you with the financial services discussed and communicated directly with you.

As RIAA offers a variety of products and services, a number of them may be of interest to you. Any personal information we collect may be used to gauge your suitability for only the products or services that have been discussed with you. We will acquire your explicit permission before we use any personal information to gauge your suitability for any of our other products and services.

RIAA will not collect or monitor any personal information about you without your consent. The only personal information we collect is what you tell us about yourself.

2. Using and disclosing your personal information

We intend to use your information for the following purposes only:
• To fulfil our obligation under any contract and/or any other contract between you and RIAA;
• To provide you with information about our products, services and/or special offers unless you explicitly request us not too;
• To ask you for your opinion or comments about our products and/or services. You may answer at your discretion; and
• To track general traffic patterns showing in usage of certain services that we offer, without identifying the usage patterns of any particular individual.

As RIAA recognises the trust that you place in us when you give us your personal information, we will not use or disclose any information about you of for other purposes without your consent, except for in exceptional cases such as if disclosure is required by laws or is necessary to protect the rights or property of RIAA, or any member of the public, or to lessen a serious threat to a person’s health or safety.

We may contact you by mail, telephone or at your email address, which you provide us in order to:
• Provide you with information which may be of interest about updates, new RIAA products and other matters which may interest you; and
• To send you a newsletter.

If you are receiving communications from RIAA and do not wish to receive this information any longer, you may remove your name from our list either by telephoning us on (02) 9687 0604, emailing us at riaa@riaa.net.au or you may also write to us. Please address your correspondence to: The Compliance Manager, PO Box 3861, Parramatta NSW 2124.

3. Data Quality of you personal information

RIAA will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is used and or disclosed in an accurate, complete and up-to-date manner. Naturally, this information will only be as accurate as our clients provide it to us.

4. Storage and security of your personal information

RIAA will also endeavour to take all reasonable steps to keep secure any information that we hold about you and to protect it from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Our employees and data processors are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by RIAA. We will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify your personal information if it is no longer needed for any purpose for which the information was originally intended.

RIAA provides links to certain industry related web sites outside the RIAA site. These linked sites are not under the control of RIAA, and we are not responsible for the conduct of companies linked to our website. Before disclosing your personal information on any other web site, we advise you to examine the Terms and Conditions of those web sites.

As we cannot guarantee the security of communications over the Internet, we are not able to give absolute assurance that, if your personal information is provided to RIAA via this medium, it will be secure at all times. RIAA will not be held responsible for events arising from unauthorised access to you personal information.

5. Openness

The purpose of this document is to clearly express RIAA’s policy on the management of your personal information. All of RIAA’s Authorise Representatives and staff will be able to explain any further details if you wish.

You are entitled to know what sort of personal information we hold, for what purposes and how we collect, hold, use and disclose that information.

6. Access to and correction of your personal information

If at any time you want to know what information we hold about you, you are welcome to request your personal information by contacting us. If you want to change and correct personal information that is inaccurate or out of date, please let us know. To have personal information deleted, please let us know in the same manner, and we will take reasonable steps to delete your personal information unless we need to keep it for legal reasons.

7. Client identifiers

RIAA does not use as a client identifier any number, code or other form of identifier used by any agency or other external entity (eg: your tax file number if collected). Similarly we will not disclose any identifier assigned to an individual by an agency unless it is necessary for us to fulfil our obligations to that agency.

8. Anonymity

You have the option of not identifying yourself when entering transactions with RIAA wherever it is lawful and practicable.

In most circumstances however, it would not be practicable to not identify yourself when receiving financial advice or transacting other business with RIAA or any of its authorised representatives.

9. Trans-border data flows

RIAA will only transfer personal information about you to someone who is in a foreign country if:
(a) We reasonably believe that the recipient of the information is subject to a law, binding scheme or contract which effectively upholds principles for fair handling of the information that are substantially similar to the National Privacy Principles; or
(b) You consent t the transfer; or
(c) The transfer is necessary for the conclusion or performance of a contract between you and the organisation, or for the implementation of pre-contractual measures taken in response to your request.

Your personal information will then only be transferred if we believe it to be for the benefit of you, or if it is impracticable to obtain the consent from you for that transfer and if so, if we believe that you would be likely to give consent.

We will take reasonable steps at all times to ensure that the information, which has been transferred, will not be held, used or disclosed by the recipient of the information inconsistently with the National Privacy Principles.

10. Sensitive Information

RIAA will not collect sensitive information about you unless:
(a) You have consented; or
(b) The collection is required by law; or
(c) The collection is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to your life or health, in the case that you were physically or legally incapable of giving consent or cannot communicate consent to the collection; or
(d) The collection is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim.

You have the right to check what personal information about you is held by us

Under the Commonwealth Privacy Act, you have the right to obtain a copy of any personal information which RIAA holds about you and to advise RIAA of any perceived inaccuracy. The Act does set out some exceptions to this.

To make a request, you will need to submit your request in writing, verifying your identity and specifying what information you require.

We will acknowledge your request within 14 days and respond promptly to it. We may charge a fee to cover the cost of verifying the application and locating, retrieving, reviewing and copying any material requested. If the information sought is extensive, we will advise the likely cost in advance and can help to refine your request if required.

What if you have a complaint?

If you consider that any action of RIAA breaches this Privacy policy Statement or the National Privacy Principles or otherwise doesn’t respect your privacy, you can make a complaint. This will be acted upon promptly.

To make a complaint, please forward it in writing to:

The Privacy Officer
Risk & Investment Advisors Australia
Level 3 / 67-69Phillip Street
Parramatta NSW 2150

If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you can phone the Commonwealth Privacy Commissioner’s hotline on 1300 363 992.