Credit code privacy policy

Background

Fisher & Paykel Australia Pty Limited ACN 000042080 [Fisher & Paykel]

The Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) sets out in Part IIIA (Part IIIA) requirements applicable to credit reporting. The requirements are also set out in the Privacy Regulations 2013.

Part IIIA restricts the types of credit information that may be disclosed to Credit Reporting Bodies (CRBs), the circumstances in which that information may be disclosed by a CRB to Credit Providers (CPs) and affected information recipients and their handling of that disclosed information.

Registered under the Privacy Act, the CR Code defines the obligations that companies are required to comply with and it is administered by the Australian Information Commissioner.

This policy is published by us to ensure that we meet those obligations when Fisher & Paykel and its related entities do business in Australia. If you have business dealings with Fisher & Paykel and its related entities in other countries, please review our specific policies in those countries which are found on the websites that we host in those countries.

Notifiable matters under the CR Code in Australia

When we collect information about you that is disclosed to a CRB:

• if you fail to meet your payment obligations in relation to consumer credit or commit a serious credit infringement, the CP may be entitled to disclose this to the CRB;
• you may obtain the CP’s policy about the management of credit-related personal information and the CRB's policy about the management of credit-related personal information by contacting them directly and their details are on their websites;
• you have rights to access the information from the CP, to request the CP to correct the information and to make a complaint to the CP and those rights are set out in the CR Code and the Privacy Act as well as explained on the websites of those entities;
• you have the right to request CRBs not to use your credit reporting information for the purposes of pre-screening of direct marketing by a CP; and
• you have the right to request the CRB not to use or disclose credit reporting information about you, if you believe on reasonable grounds that you have been, or are likely to be, a victim of fraud.

You may request a hard copy of this statement of notifiable matters.

The kinds of information Fisher & Paykel collect from you and how we collect it

Where you or your business submits an application for commercial credit, Fisher & Paykel may also collect certain other types of credit-related personal information (including information contained in a consumer or commercial credit report about you) including:

• information about your credit history, including information about your past experiences with Fisher & Paykel and its related entities and other CPs;
• the kinds of credit products that you have sought and obtained in the past;
• information about your consumer credit payments overdue beyond our payment terms and for which we have taken action to collect;
• advice that payments that were previously notified to a CRB as overdue are no longer overdue;
• publicly available information about your credit-worthiness;
• an opinion of a CP that you have committed a serious credit infringement in relation to credit provided by that CP.

The kinds of credit reporting information, including personal information, that Fisher & Paykel holds and how we hold it

Fisher & Paykel may obtain information from a CRB and other CPs in order to assess your suitability for credit and to understand if you will be able to meet your credit worthiness. We also use that information to administer your credit account and collect overdue payments.

When we assess your credit worthiness, we share some of your personal information with, and collect your credit information from CRBs. The information we share is recorded by these CRBs.

The credit information that we collect from CRBs and hold in an electronic format includes:

• Personal identification information.
• Details of enquiries made about you from other creditors.
• Information about credit arrangements you have, such as whether you have opened or closed any accounts.
• Information about any overdue payments, default listings or serious credit infringements, and whether those issues were resolved.
• Other publicly available information about your credit-worthiness, such as court proceedings you may be involved in.

Personal information we share with CRBs in exchange for receiving your credit information may be included in future credit reports provided to other creditors to assist them in assessing your credit worthiness. If you fail to meet your payment obligations or we believe you have committed a serious credit infringement, we may also disclose this to the CRBs.

The purposes for which Fisher & Paykel collect, hold and disclose credit reporting information

We may use or disclose your credit information to:

• assess your credit-worthiness for our products and services and perform general credit management activities, including to verify your identity with the issuer or official record holder of your identity documents through third party systems;
• service providers, including management, information technology, security, legal, accounting, research, credit, marketing, insurers, financial institutions and others;
• other credit providers, to assist them with assessing a credit application they have with you, or to ensure that the information about you that we handle is correct;
• manage your account and perform debt recovery and debt management activities;
• manage complaints relating to your credit information;
• protect against and detect fraud and for risk management purposes;
• protect, enforce or defend the legal rights of Fisher & Paykel and any of its related entities (including enforcement of our agreements and terms of use);
• comply with law or any legal process; or
• engage third parties to assist us with any of the above.

We’ll tell you before we conduct a credit assessment and we won’t conduct one if you are under 18.

Fisher & Paykel complies with the Privacy Act requirements about Direct Marketing

We comply with section 20G of the Privacy Act and subject to the permitted disclosure under that Act we do not use or disclose credit reporting information for direct marketing purposes.

However, we might ask a CRB to undertake pre-screening to assist us to identify whether you should be excluded from a direct marketing campaign based on certain eligibility criteria. This helps us assess if a particular offer relating to our products and services is relevant to you.

You can ask each of the CRBs that we work with not to:

• use your credit information to pre-screen for a direct marketing campaign; or
• use or disclose your credit information if you think you have been or are likely to become a victim of fraud.

Credit Reporting Bodies

The CRBs that Fisher & Paykel works with are [insert details]. You can find their contact details, more about what they do and how they manage your credit information on their websites. You may request that a CRB corrects personal information about you. And if you wish to do that you should contact the CRB directly.

We work with customer service partners that are located within and outside Australia on credit-related matters. Where necessary, we give our partners secured access to the credit information they need to help manage your credit and your services.

How we secure and protect your information

Some of the measures we currently take include:

• Following the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) when handling credit card data.
• Using firewalls, virus scanning and access logging tools and encrypting data to protect against unauthorised access to your data and our network.
• Using secure work (and sometimes closed) environments and workflow systems to prevent unauthorised access and copying of your personal information.
• Managing access privileges to ensure that only those who really need it can see your personal information.
• Ongoing training and security reviews.

You can request a copy of this policy

If you request a copy of this policy, in a particular form, we will take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to give you a copy in that form. That will be done free of charge. It is noted that this policy is available on our website and that is usually a reasonable way to give you the policy in accordance with section 20B of the Privacy Act.

You can request personal information Fisher & Paykel hold about you and also let us know if you have any complaints

You may request access to the personal information that we hold about you (including credit-related information) by using the contact details provided below.

If you have any questions or comments or complaints regarding this policy, or how we comply with the Privacy Act or CR Code please contact us by email at privacy@fisherpaykel.com.

If you want to opt out of receiving marketing information at any time by contacting us on (02) 87458200 or email us at auoptout@fisherpaykel.com.

If you would prefer to contact us by mail, please write to us at:

We will then consider your communication and acknowledge it within 7 days. It will be investigated and where necessary consultations with other CRBs or CPs will occur. A decision will be made in relation to the question, comment or complaint within 30 days or longer period agreed to by you in writing.